A California woman faces five felony charges after she registered her dog to vote and splashed a photo of the animal with its ballot on Facebook.
Laura Lee Yourex, 62, was charged with five felonies on Friday after submitting ballots in her dog’s name that were counted in a state election.
Yourex reported herself to the Orange County Registrar of Voter’s Office for having registered her dog, Maya Jean, to vote in the 2021 gubernatorial election as well as the 2022 primary.
The Costa Mesa resident’s dog’s vote was counted in the 2021 election but rejected in 2022.
According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, proof of residence or identification is not needed for citizens to register to vote or to cast a ballot in state elections.
Federal elections, however, require proof of residency and registration for first time voters.
‘As a result, the 2022 primary ballot cast in Maya Jean’s name was challenged and rejected,’ the OC DA’s office said.
The 2021 election to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom was voted down by 61.9% of voters, the release noted.
In January 2022, Yourex took to Facebook where she posted a picture of her dog wearing an ‘I Voted’ sticker and posing with the ballot
Laura Lee Yourex, 62, was charged with five felonies after casting ballots using her dog’s name, which were successfully counted in a state election.
The 2021 election to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom was voted down by 61.9% of voters
Yourex faces five felony charges, including one count of perjury, one count of submitting a false or forged document for filing, two counts of voting when not entitled, and one count of registering a non-existent person to vote.
In January 2022, Yourex took to Facebook where she posted a picture of her dog wearing an ‘I Voted’ sticker and posing with the ballot.
In October 2024, another post featured Maya’s dog tag and a mail-in voting ballot with the caption, ‘Maya is still getting her ballot,’ even though the dog had passed, as stated by the Orange County District Attorney.
It remains unclear how the dog was able to be registered and vote.
Yourex is scheduled to be arraigned in Westminster on September 9 and faces a maximum of six years in state prison if she is found guilty on all counts.
The story comes after the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page in June for allegedly refusing to provide the Justice Department with records pertaining to the removal of people lacking documentation from its voter registration list, the Seattle Times reported.
Trump recently slammed mail-in ballots as ‘fraud’ and publicly said he wanted to sign an executive order outlawing the voting method.
The president snubbed the expansion of mail-in voting in the 2020 election to accommodate for the pandemic.
Trump recently slammed mail-in ballots as ‘fraud’ and publicly said he wanted to sign an executive order outlawing the voting method
Trump embraced mail-in ballots in the 2024 election after repeatedly blaming the voting method for ‘fraud’ he claims is to lame for his 2020 loss to Joe Biden
He said mail-in ballots caused widespread ‘fraud’ that he claims is to blame for his loss to Joe Biden.
But four years later during his successful 2024 campaign, he repeatedly pushed his supporters to embrace voting by mail.
The pendulum swung again when the president took to his Truth Social to slam the idea of voting in elections by mail ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Trump said he will be ‘leading a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots’ and overhaul voting machines that he claims were used by Democrats to steal that 2020 election for Joe Biden.
He did not give a timeline for issuance of an executive order on ending the voting method, though it’s likely to come before the 2026 midterm elections as Republicans aim to hold onto their majorities in the House and Senate.
Video emerged showing a local lawmaker and an accomplice stuffing papers into a ballot drop box in Michigan ahead of local elections.
At the White House on August 18, Trump reiterated his post, claiming: ‘We’ve got to stop mail-in voting and Republicans have to lead the charge.’
‘The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy,’ he told reporters gathered in the Oval Office for the president’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. ‘If you have mail-in voting, you’re not going to have many Democrats (sic) get elected.’
‘That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me. And the Republicans have to get smart,’ he concluded.
Trump kicked off his rant by claiming that the U.S. is the ‘only country in the world that uses mail-in voting.’
‘All others gave it up because of the massive voter fraud encountered,’ Trump claimed.
But many nations use mail-in voting – including countries whose leaders are convening at the White House.
Some countries that have no-excuse mail-in voting, meaning they do not need a reason to vote by mail rather than in person, are Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Spain, and many others.
There are also many countries that offer conditional or limited mail-in voting options.
Trump, despite pushing mail-in voting and early voting on his supporters in the 2024 election, says that Democrats are using the ‘mail-in ballot hoax’ because they can’t win elections through traditional in-person voting.
‘Democrats are virtually unelectable without using this completely disproven mail-in scam,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He added: ‘Elections can never be honest with mail-in ballots/voting, and everybody, in particular the Democrats, knows this.’
