Lady avoids jail for voting dead 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 lifeless mom’s ballot in Arizona within the 2020 general election.

But the judge 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 in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one among only a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to fees, regardless of widespread belief among 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 however now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Judge Margaret LaBianca before the choose handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to impression the result of the election.

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

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

Assistant Attorney Common Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along with his office where she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

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

“And I don’t imagine that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do believe there was plenty 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 related violations of voting someone else’s poll, and mentioned nobody acquired jail time in those circumstances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional problems with fairness.

“Merely acknowledged, over an extended period of time, in voluminous circumstances, 67 circumstances, no person on this state for comparable circumstances, in similar context ... no person acquired jail time,” Henze stated. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was essential as a result of the kind of case has changed. While in years past, most circumstances involved people voting in two states as a result of they either lived in or had property in both states, in the 2020 election individuals had bought 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 right here is someone who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big problem and I’m just going to slide in under 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 in any respect,” he mentioned. “And I feel the attitude you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite circumstances.”

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

“And if there have been proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be known as for, the court docket would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the report here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for somebody like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, except your individual fraud, such statements aren't illegal as far as I do know,” the decide continued.