CONSERVATIVE MEASURES: Guess whose wife just got charged with voter fraud?
Republicans tell us elections aren’t secure and voter fraud is rampant — so why is it that, on the rare occasion when genuine fraud arises, it seems to always be connected to their party?
This time around, it’s the wife of 2020 Republican Congressional candidate Jeremy Taylor, and she’s facing 52 felonies.
Kim Phuong Taylor of Iowa is charged with 23 counts of fraudulent voting, as well as 26 counts of supplying false information when registering and voting, and three counts of fraudulent registration.
These could result in a sentence of as much as five years per count.
She’s accused of fraudulently attempting to obtain “dozens of” ballots, and of both fraudulently filling out ballots herself and falsely informing others that they could sign the names of absent relatives.
Despite all her efforts, her husband finished in third place in his primary, with a total of 6,418 votes, behind former Congressman Steve King and the primary victor, Randy Feenstra, who would go on to win in the November general election.
After his primary loss, Taylor ran in the general for a county office instead, and his wife is accused of falsifying ballots in that election too.
This time he won, by fewer than 2k votes, and still holds his seat. The Department of Justice says:
“Taylor allegedly perpetrated a scheme to generate votes in the primary election in June 2020, when her husband was an unsuccessful candidate for Iowa’s 4th U.S. Congressional District, and subsequently in the 2020 general election, when her husband was a successful candidate for Woodbury County Supervisor…[A]lthough these documents required the signer to affirm that he or she was the person named in them, Taylor signed them for voters without their permission and told others that they could sign on behalf of relatives who were not present.”
Ironically, this is exactly what Republicans keep claiming Democrats are doing — and yet, here’s a case that not only demonstrates yet another incident of (alleged) ballot fraud coming from the right, but also demonstrates how effective the election system is at catching it when it happens.
The indictment itself gives a little additional information about the allegations against Taylor, specifically noting that she’s accused of “visit[ing] numerous households within the Vietnamese community” in her county, collecting absentee ballots belonging to people who were not home, and casting votes in their names without their consent or permission, according to Business Insider.
Jeremy Taylor, who is still listed as vice chair of the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors, has not been accused of any part in the scheme, and it is not clear, at this time, whether he knew of his wife’s actions.
He dropped a video before the June primary, thanking his wife for all her hard work on his campaign, specifically mentioning providing voters with transportation to polling places.
