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

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

But the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at the least 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to expenses, regardless of 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 Choose Margaret LaBianca before the judge handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to influence the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee advised LaBianca. “I don’t want to make the excuse for my behavior. What I did was flawed and I’m ready to simply accept the results handed down by the courtroom.”

Both McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, have been registered Republicans, although 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 Legal professional Common Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his workplace the place she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

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

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for related violations of voting another person’s poll, and said nobody obtained jail time in these circumstances. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional problems with equity.

“Simply acknowledged, over an extended time frame, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, nobody on this state for similar cases, in comparable context ... no person bought jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was vital as a result of the kind of case has modified. Whereas in years previous, most circumstances concerned folks voting in two states as a result of they either lived in or had property in each states, within 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 advised the judge. “And essentially what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a giant drawback and I’m simply going to slide in below 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 at all,” he stated. “And I think the perspective you hear in the interview is the perspective that differentiates this case from the other circumstances.”

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

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be known as for, the court might order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “However the report here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for somebody just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, except your personal fraud, such statements should not illegal as far as I do know,” the decide continued.