Woman avoids jail for voting useless mother’s ballot 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 useless mother’s poll in Arizona in the 2020 common election.

However the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve a minimum of 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to costs, despite widespread belief 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Choose Margaret LaBianca before the judge handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to impression the end result of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee advised LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was unsuitable 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, though she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days earlier than early ballots were mailed to voters.

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

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

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for related violations of voting another person’s poll, and stated no one received jail time in these circumstances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of fairness.

“Merely stated, over a long time period, in voluminous instances, 67 instances, nobody on this state for similar cases, in similar context ... nobody obtained jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson stated jail time was important as a result of the type of case has modified. While in years previous, most instances concerned folks voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election individuals had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

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

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he said. “And I feel the perspective you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

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

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

“And abhorrent as it might be for somebody just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, besides your individual fraud, such statements should not illegal so far as I know,” the decide continued.