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

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her lifeless mother’s ballot in Arizona within the 2020 basic election.

However the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve no less than 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in all only a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to prices, 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 Courtroom Choose Margaret LaBianca before the choose handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to impression the end result of the election.

“Your Honor, I would like to apologize,” McKee informed LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was fallacious and I’m prepared to accept the implications handed down by the court.”

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

Assistant Legal professional Normal Todd Lawson played 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 only strategy to prevent voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee instructed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud is going to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I mean, there’s no way to ensure a fair 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 attorney, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for similar violations of voting another person’s ballot, and said nobody obtained jail time in those cases. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of equity.

“Merely said, over a long time period, in voluminous cases, 67 cases, nobody in this state for comparable cases, in related context ... no one received jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

However Lawson mentioned jail time was vital as a result of the type of case has modified. While in years previous, most cases concerned folks voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in each 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 decide. “And basically what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s a big drawback and I’m simply going to slip in underneath 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 mentioned. “And I believe the angle you hear in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the other circumstances.”

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 committed voter fraud.

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

“And abhorrent as it could be for someone like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, besides your personal fraud, such statements are usually not unlawful as far as I do know,” the decide continued.