Lady 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 community service for voting her useless mom’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 normal election.

But the choose 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 those 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 which have led to charges, regardless of widespread belief 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 earlier than the judge 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 would like to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was mistaken and I’m ready to just accept the implications handed down by the court docket.”

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 were mailed to voters.

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

“The one option to stop voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” 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 good election.

“And I don’t consider that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was a whole 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 someone else’s ballot, and stated nobody got jail time in these instances. He said agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional problems with fairness.

“Merely acknowledged, over a protracted time frame, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no one in this state for comparable circumstances, in comparable context ... no person got jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

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

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson advised the decide. “And basically what we’re seeing right here is someone who says ‘Effectively, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big drawback and I’m simply 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 at all,” he stated. “And I think the attitude you hear within the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the other cases.”

LaBianca mentioned that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she informed the investigator what she wanted: going after people who committed 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 might order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “However the document here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it could be for someone just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, except your own fraud, such statements should not illegal as far as I do know,” the decide continued.