A 62-year-old Costa Mesa woman made her first appearance in court Tuesday on various charges for allegedly registering her dog to vote -- and twice casting ballots in the pooch's name.
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Arraignment for Laura Lee Yourex, who turns 63 on Friday, was postponed until Dec. 10.
Yourex is accused of illegally casting ballots in her dog's name in the 2021 gubernatorial recall election and 2022 primary election, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
"Laura Yourex sincerely regrets her unwise attempt to expose flaws in our state voting system intending to improve it by demonstrating that even a dog can be registered to vote," the defendant's attorney, Jaime Coulter, said in a statement. "Ms. Yourex never hid from taking personal responsibility as she self-reported the matter to the Orange County Registrar of Voters, intending to have them investigate and ultimately improve our voting registration system."
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said his office was alerted to the alleged fraud from former Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, who is now an attorney with the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department.
"I received an email from former Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates who said a voter talked to him and shared that her dog received a ballot," Page said. "I quickly referred that to the district attorney to investigate."
Prosecutors confirmed that Yourex reported she had registered her dog, Maya Jean Yourex, to vote. The 2022 primary ballot cast in the dog's name was challenged and rejected because proof of residence and registration required for first-time voters was not shown, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors allege that Yourex even posted a photo on social media of her dog in January 2022 with an "I voted" sticker.
She also allegedly posted, in October 2024, a photograph of a vote-by- mail ballot with the caption "Maya is still getting her ballot," despite the dog dying, prosecutors said.
Yourex was charged Aug. 28 with single counts of perjury, procuring or offering a false or forged document to be filed and knowing registration of nonexistent person to vote, plus two counts of not being entitled to vote in an election, all felonies.
She faces up to six years in prison -- that's 42 in dog years -- if convicted on all counts.
The issue sparked a heated debate among the Orange County Board of Supervisors as Supervisors Don Wagner and Janet Nguyen attempted to propose having Page report on what his office was doing to ensure other pets were not registered to vote.
The District Attorney's Office announced the case in a news release Friday afternoon, hours after the deadline for supervisors to add an item to the agenda for the Tuesday meeting. The board voted 3-2 to reject adding the emergency item to Tuesday's board meeting, but Nguyen and Wagner vowed to bring it back for discussion at the board's next meeting.
Wagner argued it was an urgent matter because there was a deadline Wednesday for the Registrar to file the list of eligible voters for the Nov. 4 special election on congressional redistricting.
"Two weeks ago we were talking about 17 voters subject to (Department of Justice) action so it would have been nice then that we were told, "Hey guys, you think that's bad wait till you hear about the dog," Wagner said. "We need to get on this today to see what the Registrar is doing, how a dog got registered, what we're doing to see if other dogs are registered and what are we doing to find out if cats are registered? What are we doing to make sure our voter rolls are in fact cured so that tomorrow when we run these files we know that it's going to include people, not Fido."
Nguyen added, "We're looking at a special election ... We need to take that special election seriously and this will cripple what people see in Orange County and what we do and do not trust."
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he did not view the issue as an emergency.
"I don't want to water down how we define an emergency," Sarmiento said. "I certainly think it was an interesting story ... But, again, I think it's something that we can certainly defer to the DA's Office. I feel that they are pursuing this and I think that's the proper way to move forward on this."
Board Chairman Doug Chaffee and Vice Chairwoman Katrina Foley noted it would be impractical to check every voter.
"It's an impossible request," Chaffee said. "There's no money provided for staffing, for example, to do the impossible ... The key is the district attorney is doing something, which should be a lesson to all."
Foley condemned Yourex's act as "mockery" of the system.
"To me, this is a matter of civics and citizenship and honesty," Foley said. "And our democracy is dependent on our citizens having good-faith behavior in our voting, in our democracy. Maybe we need to do some more civics lessons in our schools. Maybe our children need to be better educated how you don't make light of the democratic system, the most powerful system in the world. You don't register your dog or cat or horse on purpose to mock the system. Why is no one appalled by the person who mocked the system? And that is what we should be focused on."
Foley said Yourex is a registered Republican who registered the canine as no-party preference to vote for the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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