Kim Phuong Taylor, 49, was arrested Thursday, Jan. 12, and pleaded not guilty to 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration and 23 counts of fraudulent voting. She was released on a personal recognizance bond and ordered to surrender her passport and may not apply for a new one.
A trial was scheduled for March 20 in U.S. District Court in Sioux City.
A federal indictment unsealed Thursday spelled out a scheme in which Kim Taylor allegedly approached members of Sioux City's Vietnamese community and filled out voter registration forms in their names and also voted absentee ballots, signing affidavits with their names. Her actions took place leading up to the June primary election, in which Jeremy Taylor unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for Iowa's 4th District Congressional seat and leading up to the November general election in which Taylor defeated incumbent Democrat Marty Pottebaum by nearly 2,000 votes for the District 3 seat on the county board.
A call seeking comment made to Jeremy Taylor's cell phone went straight to voice mail, and no one answered his home phone. He also did not respond to a text message seeking comment.
Kim Taylor's attorney, John Greer, of Spencer, Iowa, declined to comment on the charges.
According to a U.S. Justice Department news release, the FBI continues to investigate the case. A spokeswoman at the FBI's Omaha field office referred questions to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Tony Morfitt, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Northern District of Iowa, said he could not comment on the indictment or the investigation.
Woodbury County Auditor and election commissioner Pat Gill confirmed Thursday he notified the Iowa Secretary of State's Office after his office was contacted about the potential voter fraud just before the November 2020 election. Gill said he was instructed to contact the FBI.
"We received a call from one of the folks that had a ballot voted for them," Gill said.
Gill has scheduled a press conference for 11 a.m. Friday at the Woodbury County Courthouse to further discuss his office's role in the investigation. He said Thursday his office provided the FBI with suspected fraudulent registration forms and absentee ballots.
According to the indictment, Kim Taylor, whom Jeremy Taylor met while teaching in Vietnam, approached Sioux City residents with Vietnamese backgrounds who had limited ability to read and understand English and offered to help them vote. Prior to both elections in 2020, she helped those people fill out voter registration forms or filled them out herself and submitted them to the county auditor's office.
Kim Taylor also is accused of signing absentee ballot request forms for residents who were not present or told residents they could sign the forms for other family members, a violation of a registration affidavit in which applicants swear they are the person named on the form.
The indictment says Kim Taylor visited numerous households in the Vietnamese community to encourage them to fill out their absentee ballots, in some cases filling out the ballot and signing the accompanying affidavits for people who were not present or telling family members they could sign on their behalf. Taylor then delivered the ballots to the auditor's office, "... causing the casting of votes in the names of residents who had no knowledge of and had not consented to the casting of their ballots," the indictment said.
Kim Taylor voted her own ballots in both elections, the indictment said.
Jeremy Taylor was seeking the county board seat after resigning from the board earlier that year over questions about his official address. After an investigation, Gill ruled Taylor, who was first elected to the board in 2014, could no longer hold his District 2 seat because he had improperly used an address for a former home in Sioux City on his voter registration, but was living in a home in District 3, violating a state law requiring county supervisors to live in the district in which they were registered.
After Taylor's third-place finish in his primary race for Congress, a Woodbury County Republican panel selected him to run against Pottebaum for the county board's District 3 seat.
After redistricting in the wake of the 2020 U.S. Census, Taylor, a former state legislator, now represents District 5 and currently serves as the board's vice chairman. He's up for re-election in 2024.
(c)2023 Sioux City Journal, Iowa. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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