Woman 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 neighborhood service for voting her useless mom’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 common election.

But the judge 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 towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in every of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances 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 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 Decide Margaret LaBianca before the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to impression the outcome of the election.

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

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

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

“The one option to forestall voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee told the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud is going to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I imply, there’s no means to ensure a good election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s legal professional, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for related violations of voting another person’s poll, and said nobody obtained jail time in those cases. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply said, over an extended period of time, in voluminous circumstances, 67 instances, no person in this state for related instances, in similar context ... nobody acquired jail time,” Henze said. “The court didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was vital because the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years past, most cases involved people voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in both states, in the 2020 election people 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 choose. “And primarily what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m simply going to slip in under the radar. And I’m going to do it because all people else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

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

LaBianca stated that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told the investigator what she wished: going after people 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 court docket would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the report right here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for someone just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, except your own fraud, such statements are not unlawful so far as I do know,” the choose continued.