Girl avoids jail for voting lifeless mother’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 dead mother’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 common election.

However the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve a minimum of 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is considered one of just a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to prices, despite widespread perception 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Margaret LaBianca before the choose handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to affect the outcome of the election.

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

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, had 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 had been mailed to voters.

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

“The one way to stop voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a ballot,” McKee instructed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud is going to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I imply, there’s no method to make sure a fair election.

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

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

“Simply stated, over an extended time period, in voluminous circumstances, 67 instances, no person on this state for related cases, in comparable context ... nobody bought jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time at all.”

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

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson instructed the decide. “And essentially what we’re seeing right 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 slide in under the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that in any respect,” he mentioned. “And I think the angle you hear in the interview is the perspective that differentiates this case from the other circumstances.”

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

“And if there were evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be referred to as for, the court might order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “However the file here doesn't show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for someone like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, besides your own fraud, such statements aren't unlawful as far as I do know,” the choose continued.