Lady avoids jail for voting useless mother’s ballot in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her lifeless mother’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 general election.

But the judge 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 one in every of only a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to prices, 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 Court Choose Margaret LaBianca earlier than the judge handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to influence the result of the election.

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

Both 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 earlier than early ballots were mailed to voters.

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

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

“And I don’t believe that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was lots 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 mentioned no one received jail time in these circumstances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply acknowledged, over an extended time period, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, no one on this state for comparable cases, in related context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze stated. “The court didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson stated jail time was important as a result of the kind of case has modified. Whereas in years past, most instances involved individuals voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in each states, in the 2020 election individuals had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson instructed the judge. “And essentially what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s an enormous drawback and I’m just going to slip in under 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 said. “And I feel the attitude you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

LaBianca mentioned that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told the investigator what she wanted: going after people who committed voter fraud.

“And if there were evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be called for, the courtroom might order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the report here doesn't present 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 without any proof, except your individual fraud, such statements are usually not illegal as far as I do know,” the decide continued.