Woman avoids jail for voting dead mom’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a woman o two years of felony probation, fines and neighborhood service for voting her lifeless mother’s ballot in Arizona within the 2020 general election.

But the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at least 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in all only a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to fees, regardless of widespread perception amongst many supporters of former President Donald Trump that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his loss in Arizona and different battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Choose Margaret LaBianca earlier than the judge handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to influence the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was wrong and I’m prepared to simply accept the consequences handed down by the court docket.”

Each McKee and her mom, Mary Arendt, were registered Republicans, although she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days earlier than early ballots have been mailed to voters.

Assistant Attorney Common Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along with his workplace where she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s poll.

“The only approach to forestall voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a ballot,” McKee informed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud is going to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I mean, there’s no manner to make sure a good election.

“And I don’t consider that this was a fair election,” she continued. “I do consider there was plenty of voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s poll, and stated nobody got jail time in those instances. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of fairness.

“Simply stated, over a long time period, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no person in this state for similar circumstances, in related context ... no one got jail time,” Henze stated. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson stated jail time was vital because the kind of case has modified. Whereas in years previous, most instances concerned people voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in both states, within the 2020 election individuals had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson instructed the judge. “And essentially what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a giant downside and I’m simply going to slide in beneath the radar. And I’m going to do it because everybody else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he stated. “And I think the angle you hear within the interview is the perspective that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

LaBianca mentioned that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she informed the investigator what she wished: going after people who committed voter fraud.

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be known as for, the courtroom might order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “However the file right here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for someone like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, except your own fraud, such statements are not unlawful as far as I do know,” the judge continued.