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

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

However the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve a minimum of 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold 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 which have led to expenses, 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 different battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Choose Margaret LaBianca earlier than the decide handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to impact the outcome of the election.

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

Both 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 before early ballots have been mailed to voters.

Assistant Lawyer Common Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along with his office where she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

“The one solution to stop voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a ballot,” McKee instructed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I mean, there’s no manner to ensure a fair election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for related violations of voting another person’s ballot, and said nobody got jail time in those cases. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional problems with fairness.

“Merely stated, over a long time period, in voluminous instances, 67 circumstances, no one on this state for comparable instances, in comparable context ... nobody got jail time,” Henze said. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was necessary as a result of the type of case has changed. While in years previous, most circumstances involved people voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election folks had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson told the judge. “And basically what we’re seeing right here is someone who says ‘Effectively, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous problem and I’m simply going to slide in under the radar. And I’m going to do it because all people else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he mentioned. “And I think the attitude you hear within the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the other cases.”

LaBianca stated that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she instructed the investigator what she wished: 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 known as for, the court may order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “But the record right here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

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