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

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and neighborhood service for voting her dead mother’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 normal election.

But the judge 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 hold those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to fees, regardless of widespread perception 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 Court Judge Margaret LaBianca before the decide handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to influence the result of the election.

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

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

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

“The only method to stop voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee advised the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I imply, there’s no manner to make sure a fair election.

“And I don’t imagine 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 cases of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for similar violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and stated no one bought jail time in these cases. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply acknowledged, over a protracted time period, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, nobody in this state for similar instances, in comparable context ... no person bought jail time,” Henze stated. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

However Lawson said jail time was important as a result of the type of case has modified. Whereas in years past, most circumstances involved folks voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in both states, within the 2020 election individuals had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson informed the judge. “And basically what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Properly, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m just going to slip in under 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 in any respect,” he stated. “And I feel the perspective you hear in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the other cases.”

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

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be referred to as for, the courtroom might order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “But the record here does not show 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 with none evidence, except your individual fraud, such statements should not unlawful so far as I do know,” the choose continued.