Girl avoids jail for voting dead mom’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady o two years of felony probation, fines and community service for voting her useless mother’s poll in Arizona in the 2020 common election.

However the choose rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at the very least 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 just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to fees, despite widespread perception 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 earlier than the judge handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to affect the end result of the election.

“Your Honor, I would like to apologize,” McKee instructed LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was flawed and I’m prepared to accept the consequences handed down by the court docket.”

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

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

“The one technique to stop voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee instructed the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I mean, there’s no manner to ensure a good election.

“And I don’t consider that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do consider there was quite a lot 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 similar violations of voting another person’s ballot, and said no one received jail time in those circumstances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of equity.

“Merely acknowledged, over a protracted time period, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no one in this state for similar instances, in similar context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson stated jail time was important as a result of the kind of case has changed. While in years previous, most cases concerned individuals voting in two states because they either lived in or had property in both 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 on the market,” Lawson instructed the choose. “And basically what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s an enormous downside and I’m just going to slip 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 believe the angle you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

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

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

“And abhorrent as it may be for someone just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, besides your personal fraud, such statements will not be unlawful so far as I know,” the decide continued.