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

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

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is considered one of only a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to prices, 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Choose Margaret LaBianca before the decide handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to impact the end result of the election.

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

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

Assistant Legal professional Basic Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his workplace where she stated there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

“The only strategy to prevent voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee informed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I imply, there’s no manner to ensure a fair election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s poll, and stated nobody bought jail time in those instances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional issues of equity.

“Merely stated, over a long period of time, in voluminous circumstances, 67 instances, nobody on this state for related instances, in comparable context ... no one got jail time,” Henze said. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson said jail time was essential as a result of the kind of case has modified. While in years previous, most circumstances concerned individuals voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in both states, within 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 instructed 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 slide in under 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 stated. “And I think the attitude you hear in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the other cases.”

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

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be called for, the court may order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the file right here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for somebody just like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, except your own fraud, such statements usually are not unlawful as far as I do know,” the judge continued.