Arizona
Arizona woman sentenced to 30 days in jail for collecting 4 ballots
PHOENIX (AP) — A southwestern Arizona lady who pleaded responsible to accumulating 4 early ballots within the 2020 major was sentenced Thursday to 30 days in jail and two years’ probation, with the choose saying he didn’t suppose she had accepted accountability for her crime.
The sentence for Guillermina Fuentes, a 66-year-old faculty board member and former mayor of the small border metropolis of San Luis, caps a prolonged case that caught the attention of investigators the day of the August 2020 major and finally led to prices towards Fuentes and one other San Luis lady.
Republicans who query former President Donald Trump’s loss in Arizona and different battleground states seized on the case as proof of widespread voter fraud, despite the fact that it got here within the major and is the only real case of “poll harvesting” ever prosecuted within the state.
Yuma County Superior Court docket Choose Roger Nelson advised Fuentes that regardless of a parade of character witnesses and her lawyer’s plea that she be spared from jail, she had not accepted accountability.
“‘The defendant acknowledged accountability for carrying ballots for another person, nevertheless, she acknowledged, ‘I’m not a prison,’” Nelson learn.
“Effectively, you’re a prison,” Nelson advised her. “You dedicated a prison offense. I don’t suppose you acknowledge that as a prison offense. That’s the issue that I’ve.”
Prosecutors from the Arizona legal professional normal’s workplace had sought a 12 months in jail for her felony plea to violating a 2016 “poll harvesting” legislation that makes it unlawful to own another person’s mail ballots until they’re a member of the family, housemate or caregiver to the voter.
Fuentes’ attorneys had urged Nelson to provide her probation and character witnesses at a listening to final week offered glowing reviews of her service within the small border metropolis of San Luis, rising a enterprise and changing into a pacesetter, and her regret for breaking the legislation.
Nelson praised her for that, but in addition mentioned it weighed closely in his determination to ship her to jail.
“Most of the issues that had been put ahead as mitigating elements, I feel they’re additionally aggravating elements,” he mentioned. “You have got been a pacesetter within the San Luis neighborhood for a very long time. Folks look as much as you, individuals respect you, they usually look to what you do.”
Fuentes collected the 4 accomplished mail ballots from acquaintances in San Luis, and gave them to co-defendant Alma Juarez whereas working a desk outdoors a polling place the place she was urging individuals to vote for a slate of metropolis council candidates. Juarez carried them inside and put them in a poll drop-off bin.
Election officers in Yuma County confirmed that the ballots had been reputable and the mail-ballot envelopes had been signed by certified voters, so that they had been counted.
San Luis doesn’t ship mail to residents, a lot of whom earn low incomes and don’t personal automobiles, making journeys to the submit workplace a problem, in line with the Arizona Voter Empowerment Activity Pressure, a bunch of attorneys and advocates for individuals going through authorized points over voting or serving to others case ballots.
“The Court docket’s sentence at this time is an unjust end in a political prosecution the place the one alleged hurt was the supply of 4 lawfully voted ballots,” mentioned Fuentes’ legal professional, Anne Chapman, in an announcement offered by the group.
Juarez pleaded responsible to a misdemeanor in a plea settlement with prosecutors that known as for her to get probation. Nelson was not certain by that settlement, however gave her probation and no jail time.
A metropolis council write-in candidate videotaped the trade outdoors the polls, and known as the sheriff’s workplace. The legal professional normal’s “election integrity” unit shortly took over the investigation.
Prosecutors alleged in courtroom papers that Fuentes ran a complicated operation utilizing her standing in Democratic politics in San Luis to influence voters to let her collect and, in some circumstances, fill out their ballots. However they dropped extra severe prices of conspiracy and forgery and each defendants pleaded responsible to a single rely of poll abuse.
Nelson famous the small-town politics within the case and years of rumors that individuals like Fuentes collected ballots from voters and delivered them to the polls.
“It’s been a problem for a very long time, or not less than it’s been alleged that it’s a problem, that individuals vote for others, take their ballots,” Nelson mentioned. “Everyone that’s concerned in politics on this space knew {that a} new legislation was handed. You definitely knew it, that that legislation was new, even went as much as the Supreme Court docket.”
Regardless of efforts by Republicans who’ve rallied round the opportunity of widespread voting fraud within the 2020 election to color the case as an indication of rampant voting fraud, there’s no signal her unlawful poll assortment went past the small-town politics Fuentes was concerned in.
Assistant Legal professional Common Todd Lawson advised Nelson at a listening to final week that the case is concerning the safety of elections and that Fuentes deserved jail.
Fuentes mechanically loses her faculty board seat and can’t serve in an elected or appointed submit until the felony conviction is dropped to a misdemeanor, which may happen after she completes probation. She was ordered to show herself in to jail on Saturday.