Lady avoids jail for voting useless mother’s ballot in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A decide in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her useless mother’s ballot in Arizona within the 2020 normal election.

But the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve no less than 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one among just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to expenses, regardless of widespread belief amongst many supporters of former President Donald Trump that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his loss in Arizona and other battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Decide Margaret LaBianca before the judge handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to impact the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee informed LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was improper and I’m prepared to just accept the implications handed down by the court docket.”

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

Assistant Lawyer General Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his workplace the place she stated there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s ballot.

“The only option to forestall voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee advised the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I imply, there’s no manner to make sure a good election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for comparable violations of voting another person’s ballot, and said no one bought jail time in those instances. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional issues of fairness.

“Simply acknowledged, over a long time frame, in voluminous circumstances, 67 cases, nobody in this state for related instances, in similar context ... no one bought jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court didn’t impose jail time at all.”

However Lawson said jail time was vital as a result of the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years past, most circumstances involved individuals voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in both states, within the 2020 election people had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson advised the decide. “And primarily what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous problem and I’m just going to slide in beneath the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of all people else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that in any respect,” he said. “And I feel the perspective you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the other cases.”

LaBianca said that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told the investigator what she wanted: going after people who dedicated voter fraud.

“And if there have been proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be known as for, the court would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “However the document right here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for somebody like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, besides your own fraud, such statements should not illegal as far as I know,” the judge continued.