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

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

But the decide 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 these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in all just a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to costs, 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 Judge Margaret LaBianca before the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to affect the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I want 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 just accept the implications handed down by the court.”

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, were 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 Lawyer Normal Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his workplace where she stated there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s poll.

“The one strategy to prevent voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee told the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud is going to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I mean, there’s no method to ensure a good election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and stated no one acquired jail time in these cases. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of equity.

“Merely stated, over a long time frame, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no person in this state for comparable circumstances, in comparable context ... no one received jail time,” Henze stated. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

However Lawson stated jail time was vital as a result of the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years past, most circumstances involved people voting in two states as a result of they either lived in or had property in both 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 informed the decide. “And primarily what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Effectively, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a giant downside and I’m simply going to slip in beneath the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that in any respect,” he stated. “And I feel the attitude you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

LaBianca mentioned that whereas 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 were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be known as for, the court might order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the document here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

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