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

PHOENIX (AP) — A decide in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her useless mother’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 basic election.

But the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve at the least 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they maintain those committing voter fraud accountable.

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is considered one of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to expenses, despite widespread belief amongst 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 but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Decide Margaret LaBianca before the judge handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to influence the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I want to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t want to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was wrong and I’m ready to accept the consequences handed down by the court docket.”

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

“The only technique to forestall voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee told the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes 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 believe there was lots 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 comparable violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and mentioned no one obtained jail time in these cases. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would elevate constitutional issues of equity.

“Simply acknowledged, over an extended time period, in voluminous cases, 67 circumstances, no one in this state for similar instances, in comparable context ... no one acquired jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson stated jail time was important as a result of the kind of case has modified. While in years past, most cases concerned individuals voting in two states because 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 hearing is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson advised the decide. “And essentially what we’re seeing here is somebody who says ‘Properly, 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 everybody 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 attitude you hear in the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the other instances.”

LaBianca said that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she advised the investigator what she needed: 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 called for, the court might order jail time,” LaBianca stated. “However the record here does not present that this crime is on the rise.

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