Woman avoids jail for voting lifeless mother’s ballot in Arizona

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

But the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve no less than 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one among just a handful of voter fraud instances 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 other battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale however now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Choose Margaret LaBianca before the choose handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to impression the result of the election.

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

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, have been registered Republicans, though she was not requested if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days before early ballots had been mailed to voters.

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

“The one way to stop voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a ballot,” McKee told the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud goes 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 variety of voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of cases 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 those circumstances. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of fairness.

“Simply said, over a protracted time period, in voluminous instances, 67 instances, nobody on this state for related instances, in similar context ... no one obtained jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson stated jail time was important because the kind of case has modified. While in years previous, most circumstances involved folks voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in each states, in the 2020 election individuals had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson advised the choose. “And basically what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s an enormous problem and I’m just going to slide in beneath 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 mentioned. “And I think the angle you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

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

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may 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 attack the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, besides your personal fraud, such statements are usually not unlawful as far as I know,” the judge continued.