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

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

However the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at the very least 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in every of just a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to expenses, despite widespread perception 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 Courtroom Judge Margaret LaBianca earlier than the judge handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to influence the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee instructed LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my behavior. What I did was unsuitable and I’m ready to just accept the implications handed down by the court docket.”

Both McKee and her mom, Mary Arendt, were registered Republicans, although she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days before early ballots had been mailed to voters.

Assistant Legal professional Basic Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his workplace where she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s poll.

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

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s poll, and said no one acquired jail time in these cases. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply said, over an extended time frame, in voluminous circumstances, 67 instances, no one in this state for similar instances, in similar context ... no person obtained jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson stated jail time was essential because the kind of case has modified. Whereas in years past, most cases involved people voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election people had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson informed the judge. “And primarily what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous drawback and I’m just going to slide in underneath 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 in any respect,” he stated. “And I think the angle you hear within 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 informed the investigator what she wanted: going after people who committed voter fraud.

“And if there have been proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be known as for, the court docket would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “However the record right here doesn't show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for someone like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, except your own fraud, such statements will not be unlawful so far as I know,” the decide continued.