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

PHOENIX (AP) — A decide in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady o two years of felony probation, fines and community service for voting her dead mother’s ballot 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 in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of only a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to fees, 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to affect the end result of the election.

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

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, have been registered Republicans, though 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 Legal professional Basic Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his workplace the place she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

“The only strategy to stop voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee advised the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I imply, there’s no means to ensure a fair election.

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

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

“Simply stated, over an extended time period, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, no person on this state for related instances, in related context ... nobody received jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

However Lawson stated jail time was necessary as a result of the kind of case has modified. While in years previous, most instances involved individuals voting in two states because 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 out there,” Lawson advised the choose. “And basically what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous downside and I’m simply going to slide in under the radar. And I’m going to do it because everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that in any respect,” he said. “And I believe the angle you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

LaBianca said that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told the investigator what she needed: going after people who dedicated voter fraud.

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be known as for, the court docket would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “But the report right here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for somebody just like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, except your individual fraud, such statements are not illegal as far as I know,” the decide continued.