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

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

But the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve no less than 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold 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, 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 Courtroom Choose Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to affect the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was mistaken and I’m prepared to just accept the implications handed down by the courtroom.”

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, had been registered Republicans, though 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 Attorney General Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his office where she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

“The only way to stop voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee instructed 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 manner to make sure a good election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for related violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and stated nobody obtained jail time in those circumstances. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply stated, over a long time frame, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no one in this state for comparable cases, in related context ... no one got jail time,” Henze said. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson stated jail time was vital because the type of case has changed. Whereas in years previous, most cases concerned folks voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in both states, in the 2020 election people had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson informed the decide. “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 a giant drawback and I’m just going to slip in beneath the radar. And I’m going to do it because 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 in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite circumstances.”

LaBianca stated that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she advised the investigator what she needed: going after people who committed 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 might order jail time,” LaBianca said. “However the record right here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for someone just like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, except your own fraud, such statements will not be unlawful as far as I do know,” the judge continued.