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

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

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

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of only a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to expenses, 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 however now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to impression the end result of the election.

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

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 had been mailed to voters.

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

“The one way to stop voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee informed 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 approach to make sure a fair election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and said nobody received jail time in those instances. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply acknowledged, over a protracted time frame, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, no one on this state for comparable circumstances, in comparable context ... nobody acquired jail time,” Henze stated. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson stated jail time was necessary because the kind of case has changed. While in years past, most circumstances concerned folks voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in both states, in the 2020 election individuals had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson advised the choose. “And basically what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big downside and I’m simply going to slip in below the radar. And I’m going to do it because everybody else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that in any respect,” he stated. “And I believe the angle you hear in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite 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 individuals 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 would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “But the record right here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for someone just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, besides your personal fraud, such statements will not be illegal so far as I know,” the decide continued.