California Woman Faces Charges After Allegedly Registering Dog to Vote, Claims It Was an Experiment

In an unexpected twist, a California woman’s attempt to expose flaws in the state’s voter registration system led to her facing multiple felony charges. Laura Yourex, in a bid to highlight potential election loopholes, registered her dog, Maya, a Boxer, to vote during the 2020 election. However, instead of prompting reforms, her actions resulted in her being accused of voter fraud.

Yourex explained that her motivation stemmed from a concerning incident at her Costa Mesa residence, where she received six voter registration cards despite only two eligible voters living there—herself and her husband. “Receiving six cards was absurd,” she remarked, expressing her frustration at what she perceived as a glaring oversight in the system.

Her efforts to alert authorities to this issue, she claims, fell on deaf ears. “If somebody had looked at it, if somebody did something about it… but nobody cares,” she told The Post, expressing her dismay at the lack of response from election officials.

This situation highlights ongoing concerns about election integrity in California, a topic critics have been vocal about, yet feel remains unaddressed. Yourex’s story serves as a cautionary tale about the potential consequences of taking matters into one’s own hands, even when done with the intent of drawing attention to systemic issues.

The Orange County woman said she carried out the stunt after receiving six voter registration cards at her Costa Mesa home, despite having only two eligible voters living there.

“I think that’s really what kind of set me off, we have two people living in this house — my husband and I — and we got six cards to register to vote,” she said. “I was like, well, that’s ridiculous.”

So Yourex decided to “test” the system by seeing if her dog could register and and get sent a ballot.

“If you look at the actual form that I sent in, it’s literally a made-up name, made-up birthday, no Social Security number at all,” Yourex said. “The only thing that was real on it was my address.”

Weeks later, Maya received a mail-in ballot.

Yourex said she immediately contacted the Orange County Registrar of Voters to report what had happened, but claims no one responded.

She said she repeatedly tried to alert officials between 2020 and 2025, even reaching out to former Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates through a friend.

“I’ve given my picture of Maya and her ballot, and given my phone number, and would never hear from anybody,” Yourex explained.

“It’s not something I just gave up on, I kept trying to get someone to pay attention to it. It’s not like they finally discovered it, it’s that I kept pushing until somebody paid attention.”

When investigators finally contacted her in August 2025, she thought action was finally being taken.

“I remember the first words out of my mouth when she said, ‘Hi, we’re looking into your dog being registered to vote.’ Literally, the first words out of my mouth were: ‘Thank God, finally, someone’s looking into this,’” Yourex said.

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Instead, prosecutors hit her five charges, including a felony count of procuring or offering a false or forged document to be filed, two felony counts of casting a ballot when not entitled to vote, and a felony count of registering a non-existent person to vote.

Orange County officials said Maya was not not only registered to vote — but to cast ballots in the 2021 gubernatorial recall and the 2022 primary, though the latter was challenged and rejected.

On April 10, four of felony charges were dismissed while the remaining count of registering a nonexistent person was reduced to a misdemeanor.

“I really don’t feel like anybody wanted to do anything about it, but because of the way I went about bringing it to their attention, I don’t think they had a choice,” Yourex said.

Her sentencing is scheduled for October.

The case now sits at the center of a broader political battle over election security in California.

Under current state law, voters are not required to show ID when casting a ballot. Identification is typically provided at the registration stage, while mail-in ballots rely on signature verification rather than photo ID.

A proposed statewide voter ID initiative, backed by Republican lawmakers, would require photo ID for in-person voting and additional identifying information for mail-in ballots. Organizers say they have gathered more than 1.3 million signatures to qualify the measure for the 2026 ballot.

“There is fraud going on, you know, it may be small, but it doesn’t take a lot of votes to change the outcome of an election,” Riverside County Rep. Ken Calvert told The Post.

“This is not a radical idea, Americans use an ID every day of their life. This is something that just makes common sense.”

While election experts broadly agree voter fraud in the U.S. is rare, the issue has become a touchstone point for the Trump administration.

Influencer Nick Shirley has drawn attention to voter fraud in California with viral videos claiming registrations are linked to everything from UPS stores to vacant buildings.

Yourex, who supports voter ID requirements, said she still believes in the system — but thinks it needs a review.

“The system itself, I think, is a good system but I think it just needs to have tighter regulations,” she said, adding that “seems like these officials are looking the other way.”

“You can’t stop what you don’t look for, right?” she asked.

For her part, Yourex says she’s done trying to force change.

“I can’t change it, so I’m not going to think about it,” she said. “I don’t spend a lot of time trying to think about things I don’t understand.”