Woman avoids jail for voting lifeless mother’s ballot in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A decide in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and community service for voting her lifeless mom’s ballot in Arizona in the 2020 common election.

However the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve not less than 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 in all just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to prices, 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 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 Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the decide handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to influence the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was wrong and I’m ready to just accept the consequences handed down by the courtroom.”

Both McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, have been registered Republicans, although 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 Normal Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his office the place she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

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

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for comparable violations of voting someone else’s poll, and mentioned nobody received jail time in those cases. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional problems with equity.

“Merely acknowledged, over an extended time frame, in voluminous circumstances, 67 instances, no one on this state for related cases, in comparable context ... no one obtained jail time,” Henze said. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was essential as a result of the type of case has modified. Whereas in years past, most instances concerned folks voting in two states because they either lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election folks had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson told the choose. “And essentially what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a giant drawback and I’m just going to slip in underneath 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 mentioned. “And I feel the angle you hear in the interview is the perspective that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

LaBianca mentioned that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she informed the investigator what she needed: 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 courtroom may order jail time,” LaBianca said. “However the document here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for someone like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any proof, except your individual fraud, such statements are usually not illegal so far as I know,” the judge continued.