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

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

However 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 maintain those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in all only a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to charges, 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 however now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Decide Margaret LaBianca before the decide handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to affect the result of the election.

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for comparable violations of voting another person’s poll, and stated no one bought jail time in those cases. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply acknowledged, over a long period of time, in voluminous cases, 67 cases, no one on this state for similar circumstances, in similar context ... no person got jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was necessary because the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years past, most cases involved individuals voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in each states, in the 2020 election people had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson advised the decide. “And essentially what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s a big drawback and I’m simply going to slip in beneath the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of all people else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he said. “And I believe the attitude you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

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

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be referred to as for, the court docket might order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “But the document here doesn't show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for someone like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, besides your individual fraud, such statements are usually not illegal as far as I know,” the decide continued.