Maricopa County Voter Indicted for Allegedly Casting a Ballot in Her Dead Mother’s Name in 2020 Election

An Arizona grand jury has indicted a woman for using her deceased mother’s name to vote in the November 2020 presidential election.

The story: Tracey Kay McKee, 63, from Scottsdale, Arizona has been indicted on two felony charges, according to the state grand jury’s May 7 indictment. She faces one count of perjury and one count of illegal voting.

The indictment alleges that McKee forged her mother’s name on the ballot and then gave it to election officials sometime between Oct. 7 and election day on Nov. 3. 

In Arizona, perjury is a class four felony which carries a sentence of up to two and a half years in prison. Illegal voting is a class five felony that is punishable by a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

McKee pleaded not guilty to both counts, according to the Arizona Mirror.

The indictment says that she was not eligible to vote but it is unclear why. McKee is scheduled to appear in the Maricopa County Superior Court for a pretrial conference on Aug. 11.

McKee’s mother, Mary Deloyht Arendt, died on Oct 5, 2020, according to the Attorney General’s office, two days before the start of the early voting in the 2020 presidential election. That’s also two prior to the beginning of the mailing of early ballots. 

According to the Attorney General’s Office, McKee’s mother died on Oct. 5, two days before early voting began and election officials began mailing early ballots to voters. 

Worth noting: The ballot allegedly cast by McKee in her mother’s name was one of the 33 suspected dead voters that conservative activist Merissa Hamilton flagged to the election integrity unit in Arizona AG Mark Brnovich’s office.

The investigation found that the majority of the people on Hamilton’s list were either alive at the time when the vote was cast or belonged to individuals who did not cast a vote in their name.

“While no crime was alleged to have occurred with the bulk of the names referred, AGO agents thoroughly investigated the claims and determined almost every individual named in the provided complaint was either alive, that the deceased individual had not voted (even though they were sent a ballot in the mail), or the voter died after mailing their ballot,” a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office told the Mirror.

“We commend General Brnovich and the Election Integrity Unit on their due diligence in pursuing the investigation from our deceased voter research project to bring justice to our good voters of Arizona in the November election,” Hamilton said in a statement.