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

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

However the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve not less than 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to fees, 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 Court docket Decide Margaret LaBianca before the judge handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to impact the result of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee informed LaBianca. “I don’t want to make the excuse for my behavior. What I did was improper and I’m prepared to just accept the consequences handed down by the court.”

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 have been mailed to voters.

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

“The one approach to stop voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee instructed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I imply, there’s no way to make sure a good election.

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

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

“Simply acknowledged, over an extended period of time, in voluminous cases, 67 cases, no person in this state for related cases, in related context ... no person obtained jail time,” Henze said. “The court didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson said jail time was necessary as a result of the type of case has modified. While in years previous, most instances concerned individuals voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in each states, in the 2020 election folks had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson advised the choose. “And essentially what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Effectively, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m simply 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 at all,” he mentioned. “And I feel the perspective you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

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

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be called for, the courtroom would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca said. “However the report right here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for someone just like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, except your own fraud, such statements should not unlawful so far as I do know,” the judge continued.