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

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

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

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in every of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to expenses, despite widespread belief amongst 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 Court docket Judge Margaret LaBianca before the decide handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to impression the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I would like to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t want to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was fallacious and I’m ready to simply 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 performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along 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 solution to forestall voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee advised the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud is going 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 consider that this was a fair election,” she continued. “I do consider there was a number of voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s legal professional, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for comparable violations of voting someone else’s poll, and mentioned no one bought jail time in those cases. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional issues of equity.

“Merely stated, over an extended time period, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, no person on this state for related cases, in similar context ... no person got jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson mentioned jail time was essential as a result of the kind of case has modified. While in years past, most instances concerned individuals 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 instructed the choose. “And essentially what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous problem and I’m simply going to slide 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 mentioned. “And I believe the attitude you hear within the interview is the perspective that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

LaBianca said that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told 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 may be referred to as for, the court would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “But the record right here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

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