Girl avoids jail for voting lifeless 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 useless mom’s ballot in Arizona within the 2020 general election.

However the judge 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 in every of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to expenses, regardless of 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 Judge Margaret LaBianca before the decide handed down her sentence. McKee mentioned that she was grieving over the loss of her mother and had no intent to influence the result 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 fallacious and I’m prepared to accept the implications handed down by the courtroom.”

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, were registered Republicans, though 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 Legal professional Basic Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his workplace the place she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s ballot.

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

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for comparable violations of voting another person’s ballot, and said no one acquired jail time in these cases. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional problems with equity.

“Merely stated, over a long time period, in voluminous cases, 67 instances, no person on this state for comparable circumstances, in related context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was necessary as a result of the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years previous, most instances involved individuals voting in two states because they either lived in or had property in both states, within the 2020 election folks had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson advised the judge. “And basically what we’re seeing here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a giant problem and I’m simply going to slip in underneath 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 at all,” he stated. “And I believe the attitude you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”

LaBianca stated that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she instructed the investigator what she wanted: going after individuals who dedicated voter fraud.

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be known as for, the court docket might order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the document right here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for somebody just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, except your personal fraud, such statements are not unlawful so far as I do know,” the decide continued.