Woman avoids jail for voting dead mom’s ballot in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady to two years of felony probation, fines and neighborhood support for voting her lifeless mother’s ballot in Arizona in the 2020 general election.

But the decide rejected a prosecutor’s ask for that she serve at least 30 days in jail mainly because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold people committing voter fraud accountable.

The scenario from Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one of just a handful of voter fraud conditions from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to rates, regardless of prevalent belief between a lot of supporters of former President Donald Trump that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his reduction in Arizona and other battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now life in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Outstanding Courtroom Decide Margaret LaBianca before the judge handed down her sentence. McKee reported that she was grieving around the reduction of her mom and had no intent to affect the final result of the election.

“Your Honor, I would like to apologize,” McKee instructed LaBianca. “I really do not want to make the excuse for my actions. What I did was erroneous and I’m well prepared to settle for the consequences handed down by the court.”

Both of those McKee and her mom, Mary Arendt, ended up registered Republicans, though she was not questioned if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two times before early ballots were mailed to voters.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee remaining interviewed by an investigator with his office where she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s ballot.

“The only way to stop voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee informed the investigator. “I signify, voter fraud is going to be commonplace as extensive as there’s mail-in voting, for absolutely sure. I signify, there is no way to assure a honest election.

“And I really don’t believe that this was a truthful election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was a ton of voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s legal professional, pointed to dozens of situations of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona in excess of the previous 10 years, lots of for identical violations of voting an individual else’s ballot, and claimed no 1 got jail time in individuals conditions. He reported agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional problems of fairness.

“Simply stated, around a extensive interval of time, in voluminous situations, 67 instances, no one in this condition for similar situations, in equivalent context … nobody got jail time,” Henze explained. “The court did not impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson reported jail time was essential for the reason that the kind of situation has changed. When in decades previous, most conditions associated people today voting in two states simply because they possibly lived in or experienced house in the two states, in the 2020 election people had purchased into Trump’s promises of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson told the decide. “And basically what we’re viewing here is somebody who states ‘Well, I’m heading to dedicate voter fraud due to the fact it is a major difficulty and I’m just likely to slide in underneath the radar. And I’m likely to do it since every person else is undertaking it and I can get away with it.’

“I really do not subscribe to that at all,” he explained. “And I believe the perspective you hear in the interview is the perspective that differentiates this situation from the other cases.”

LaBianca explained that whilst she agreed with Lawson, purchasing jail time would give McKee what she informed the investigator what she desired: going after people who committed voter fraud.

“And if there have been evidence that this criminal offense was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may perhaps be named for, the court docket could purchase jail time,” LaBianca reported. “But the document in this article does not clearly show that this criminal offense is on the increase.

“And abhorrent as it may be for anyone like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free of charge elections without having any evidence, except your have fraud, this sort of statements are not unlawful as significantly as I know,” the judge ongoing.