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

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and neighborhood service for voting her dead mom’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 basic election.

But the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at the very least 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in every of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to charges, despite widespread perception among 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 however now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to affect the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee informed LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my behavior. What I did was improper and I’m prepared to accept the results handed down by the court.”

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

Assistant Lawyer Normal Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along with his office the place she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s poll.

“The one option to forestall voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee informed the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud is going to be prevalent as 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 imagine that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was numerous voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s poll, and stated no one received jail time in these instances. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional problems with fairness.

“Merely stated, over a long time frame, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, no person on this state for similar instances, in similar context ... no one bought jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson mentioned jail time was important as a result of the kind of case has changed. While 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, in the 2020 election folks had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson instructed the choose. “And essentially what we’re seeing right here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous downside and I’m just going to slide in underneath 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 mentioned. “And I think 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 individuals who dedicated voter fraud.

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be referred to as for, the courtroom may order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “However the file here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for somebody like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, besides your personal fraud, such statements will not be unlawful so far as I know,” the decide continued.