Girl avoids jail for voting lifeless mother’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A decide in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady 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 judge rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve not less than 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to charges, regardless of widespread belief 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to impression the end result of the election.

“Your Honor, I would like to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was wrong and I’m prepared to just accept the consequences handed down by the courtroom.”

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 earlier than early ballots have been mailed to voters.

Assistant Legal professional Normal Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his office the place she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s poll.

“The only approach to forestall voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee advised the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I imply, there’s no way to ensure a good election.

“And I don’t imagine that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do consider there was plenty 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 another person’s ballot, and said nobody received jail time in these instances. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional issues of equity.

“Merely acknowledged, over a long period of time, in voluminous instances, 67 circumstances, no person in this state for similar cases, in comparable context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze said. “The court didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson stated jail time was important because the kind of case has modified. While in years past, most circumstances concerned individuals voting in two states because they both 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 on the market,” Lawson told the choose. “And basically what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s an enormous downside and I’m just going to slip in below 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 mentioned. “And I feel the perspective you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

LaBianca stated that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she informed the investigator what she wished: going after people who dedicated voter fraud.

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be referred to as for, the court docket would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “But the file here does not show 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 with none evidence, besides your individual fraud, such statements are usually not unlawful so far as I know,” the choose continued.