Lady avoids jail for voting dead mother’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a woman o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her useless mom’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 normal election.

However the choose 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 maintain those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances 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 however now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Judge Margaret LaBianca earlier than the decide handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to impression the outcome of the election.

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

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

Assistant Attorney Common Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his office where she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s poll.

“The only way to forestall voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee told the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud is going to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I imply, there’s no approach to make sure a fair election.

“And I don’t consider that this was a fair election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was lots of 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 poll, and said nobody obtained jail time in these circumstances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional problems with equity.

“Merely acknowledged, over a protracted time period, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, nobody on this state for related instances, in related context ... nobody obtained jail time,” Henze said. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson said jail time was necessary because the kind of case has modified. Whereas in years past, most instances concerned folks voting in two states as a result of they either 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 on the market,” Lawson told the choose. “And basically what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m just going to slip 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 at all,” he said. “And I believe the angle you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the other cases.”

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

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be known as for, the court docket might order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “However the document here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for someone just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any proof, except your individual fraud, such statements are usually not illegal as far as I know,” the choose continued.