Girl avoids jail for voting lifeless mom’s poll in Arizona

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

However the decide rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve not less than 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case against Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one of just a handful of voter fraud circumstances from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to prices, 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 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 earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to affect the end result of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee informed LaBianca. “I don’t want to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was unsuitable and I’m prepared to simply accept the results handed down by the court.”

Each McKee and her mom, Mary Arendt, had been registered Republicans, though 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 Normal Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his office the place she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

“The only method to forestall voter fraud is to physically 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 positive. I imply, there’s no means to make sure a good election.

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

“Simply acknowledged, over a protracted time frame, in voluminous instances, 67 cases, no person on this state for related circumstances, in related context ... no one received jail time,” Henze stated. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

However Lawson said jail time was necessary as a result of the kind of case has changed. While in years previous, most instances concerned individuals voting in two states because they either lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election people had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson advised the decide. “And primarily what we’re seeing right here is someone who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a giant drawback and I’m simply going to slip in underneath the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of all people else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he mentioned. “And I feel the angle you hear in the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite circumstances.”

LaBianca mentioned 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 may be referred to as for, the court may order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “But the file here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it may be for somebody just like the defendant to assault the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, except your individual fraud, such statements usually are not unlawful so far as I know,” the choose continued.