Lady avoids jail for voting useless mom’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a woman o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her useless mom’s poll in Arizona in the 2020 normal election.

But the judge rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve no less than 30 days in jail as a result of she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one of just a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to charges, 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Court docket Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than 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 outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee advised LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was unsuitable and I’m prepared to just accept the consequences handed down by the court docket.”

Each 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 were mailed to voters.

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

“The only method to forestall voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee instructed the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I mean, there’s no manner to make sure a fair election.

“And I don’t believe that this was a fair election,” she continued. “I do believe 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 comparable violations of voting another person’s ballot, and mentioned nobody bought jail time in these instances. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional problems with equity.

“Simply stated, over an extended time frame, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no one on this state for similar circumstances, in similar context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time at all.”

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

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson instructed the judge. “And essentially what we’re seeing right here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s an enormous downside and I’m just going to slip 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 feel the perspective you hear in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the other circumstances.”

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

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be called for, the court might order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “However the report right here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for someone like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, besides your individual fraud, such statements are not illegal as far as I do know,” the judge continued.