Girl avoids jail for voting lifeless mom’s ballot in Arizona
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PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a lady o two years of felony probation, fines and neighborhood service for voting her lifeless mom’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 normal election.
However the choose 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 these committing voter fraud accountable.
The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is certainly one of just a handful of voter fraud instances from Arizona’s 2020 election which have led to fees, 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 however 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 mentioned that she was grieving over the lack of her mom and had no intent to impact the result of the election.
“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t want to make the excuse for my habits. What I did was mistaken and I’m ready to accept the consequences handed down by the court docket.”
Each McKee and her mom, Mary Arendt, were registered Republicans, though she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days before early ballots had been mailed to voters.
Assistant Attorney Common Todd Lawson performed a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator together with his workplace where she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s ballot.
“The one technique to prevent voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a poll,” McKee told the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for sure. I imply, there’s no approach to make sure a good election.
“And I don’t imagine that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do consider there was lots of voter fraud.”
Tom Henze, McKee’s legal professional, 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 said nobody got jail time in those cases. He mentioned agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would raise constitutional issues of fairness.
“Simply acknowledged, over an extended time period, in voluminous cases, 67 circumstances, nobody in this state for related instances, in related context ... no one obtained jail time,” Henze said. “The courtroom didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”
However Lawson said jail time was vital as a result of the kind of case has changed. Whereas in years past, most instances involved people 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 decide. “And basically what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Nicely, I’m going to commit voter fraud as a result of it’s an enormous drawback and I’m just going to slip in under the radar. And I’m going to do it because all people else is doing it and I can get away with it.’
“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he said. “And I believe the attitude you hear within the interview is the angle that differentiates this case from the opposite instances.”
LaBianca mentioned that whereas she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told the investigator what she wanted: going after individuals who dedicated voter fraud.
“And if there were evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be known as for, the courtroom may order jail time,” LaBianca said. “However the record here doesn't present that this crime is on the rise.
“And abhorrent as it might be for someone just like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections without any evidence, except your individual fraud, such statements aren't unlawful as far as I know,” the choose continued.