Arizona prosecutors want 66-year-old grandmother to go to prison for collecting 4 ballots in 2020
A parade of character witnesses provided a judge Thursday with glowing reports about a southern Arizona woman who admitted to collecting four early ballots in the 2020 primary election as her lawyer seeks leniency and prosecutors urge him to send her to prison for a year. Testimony in Yuma County Superior Court painted a picture of Guillermina Fuentes as filled with remorse and a pillar of small border community of San Luis. The 66-year-old mother and grandmother, witnesses said, has spent her life helping others while raising her children, caring for her aging mother and building a business. Prison or jail time, they said, would hurt the community and serve no purpose. Fuentes is a school board member and former mayor in San Luis who has pleaded guilty to a felony violation of Arizona's "ballot harvesting" law, which bars anyone but a person's relative, housemate or caregiver from returning ballots for them. Her codefendant, Alma Juarez, pleaded guilty to the same charge, but it was d