Woman avoids jail for voting useless mom’s ballot in Arizona

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

However the decide 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 towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one among only a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to costs, regardless of widespread belief among 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 Choose 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 impact the outcome of the election.

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

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, have been registered Republicans, although she was not requested if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days earlier than early ballots have been mailed to voters.

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

“The only option to prevent voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee told the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud is going to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I imply, there’s no way to ensure a good election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and mentioned nobody got jail time in these circumstances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional problems with fairness.

“Simply acknowledged, over an extended time period, in voluminous circumstances, 67 circumstances, no one in this state for related circumstances, in similar context ... no one obtained jail time,” Henze stated. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was important because the type of case has modified. Whereas in years previous, most circumstances involved folks voting in two states because they either 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 listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson told the judge. “And primarily what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m simply going to slide in beneath 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 mentioned. “And I feel the attitude you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite circumstances.”

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

“And if there were evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be referred to as for, the court would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “But the record here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for somebody like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, besides your own fraud, such statements should not illegal as far as I do know,” the judge continued.