Iowa GOP candidate's wife cast 23 fraudulent votes for her husband in 2020: prosecutors

In the political world, Iowa is known for its early position in the Presidential primary election season, but now the state is making political news for a very much different reason.

The wife of a 2020 Iowa Republican candidate for Congress has been arrested and accused of filing 23 fraudulent votes for her husband, reports Business Insider.

Kim Phuong Taylor was arrested for trying to help her husband Jeremy Taylor win the Republican primary in 2020 for the Fourth Congressional District in Iowa. Taylor was trying to beat Steve King, a far right-wing incumbent congressman notorious for spouting racist rhetoric.

The indictment alleges that Phuong Taylor, born in Vietnam, used her ties to Iowa's Vietnamese community in Woodbury County to go home-to-home to collect absentee ballots from people who were not home. Then she allegedly completed those ballots herself, filling in Jeremy Taylor's name for the residents who did not know the votes were cast in their name and did not consent to voting for Taylor.

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These actions drew charges of 26 counts of providing false information and voting, 23 counts of fraudulent voting and three counts of fraudulent registration, along with signing voter registration forms on behalf of residents who were not present. There is a five-year maximum sentence for each charge.

The extra nearly two dozen votes did not help, as Taylor ended up third in the primary race, gathering almost 6,500 votes.

However Taylor was successful in the 2020 general election, winning a seat as a Republican candidate for the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors, serving as the board's vice chairperson.