SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The spouse of a northwestern Iowa county supervisor has been charged with 52 counts of voter fraud after she allegedly crammed out and forged absentee ballots in her husband’s unsuccessful race for a Republican nomination to run for Congress in 2020, federal prosecutors mentioned.

Kim Phuong Taylor, 49, was arrested Thursday and pleaded not responsible to the fees earlier than being launched on a private recognizance bond, the Sioux City Journal reported. Her trial is scheduled to start March 20.

Prosecutors allege in an indictment unsealed Thursday that Phuong Taylor crammed out voter registration types or delivered absentee ballots for folks in Sioux City’s Vietnamese group who had restricted skill to learn and perceive English.

She crammed out “dozens of voter registrations, absentee ballot request forms, and absentee ballots containing false information,” and delivered absentee ballots, typically with out the information of the folks whose names had been used, based on the indictment.

Pat Gill, who’s Woodbury County’s auditor and election commissioner, mentioned Thursday that he notified the Iowa secretary of state’s workplace after somebody contacted his workplace as a result of a poll had been fraudulently forged of their title in November 2020.

He mentioned his workplace later offered the FBI with suspected fraudulent registration types and absentee ballots.

Phuong Taylor dedicated the fraud earlier than the June 2020 major, during which her husband, Jeremy Taylor, a former Iowa House member, completed a distant third within the race for the Republican nomination to run for Iowa’s 4th District congressional seat, prosecutors allege. The winner of that race, Randy Feenstra, simply gained election to Congress that November.

Prosecutors contend that Phuong Taylor dedicated the identical fraud earlier than the November 2020 election during which Jeremy Taylor was elected to the Woodbury County Board, based on the indictment.

Jeremy Taylor isn’t named within the indictment and isn’t accused of wrongdoing.

Kim Phuong Taylor’s lawyer, John Greer of Spencer, Iowa, declined to touch upon the fees, the Journal reported.