Woman avoids jail for voting useless mom’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a woman 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 very least 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 one of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to prices, regardless of widespread perception among 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 earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to impression the result of the election.

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

Each 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 were mailed to voters.

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

“The only method to forestall voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a ballot,” McKee told the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I mean, there’s no manner to ensure a fair election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s poll, and stated nobody acquired jail time in these cases. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply said, over a protracted time frame, in voluminous cases, 67 cases, nobody on this state for related cases, in comparable context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson said jail time was essential because the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years previous, most instances concerned people voting in two states because they either lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election folks had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson instructed the decide. “And primarily what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Effectively, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s a giant downside and I’m simply going to slide in under the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of everybody else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

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

LaBianca mentioned that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she advised 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 may be referred to as for, the court may order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “However the file right here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for somebody just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any proof, except your personal fraud, such statements should not unlawful so far as I know,” the judge continued.