Lady avoids jail for voting useless 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 in the 2020 normal election.

But 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 these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in all only a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to charges, 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 different 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 before the decide handed down her sentence. McKee said that she was grieving over the lack of her mother and had no intent to affect the end 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 unsuitable and I’m prepared to accept the results handed down by the court.”

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

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

“The one way to forestall voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee informed the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I mean, there’s no method to make sure a good election.

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

Tom Henze, McKee’s lawyer, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for similar violations of voting another person’s ballot, and said nobody acquired jail time in these instances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of equity.

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

But Lawson said jail time was important as a result of the type of case has changed. While in years previous, most circumstances concerned folks voting in two states because they either 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 listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson told the judge. “And essentially what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m simply going to slide in underneath the radar. And I’m going to do it because everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

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

LaBianca mentioned that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she advised the investigator what she wished: going after people who dedicated voter fraud.

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be known as for, the court docket may order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the file right here doesn't 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, besides your own fraud, such statements are not illegal so far as I know,” the decide continued.