illegally cast ballots in her dog\u2019s name<\/a> in the 2021 gubernatorial recall election and 2022 primary election, according to the Orange County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\u201cLaura 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,\u201d the defendant\u2019s attorney, Jaime Coulter, said in a statement when her client was charged last year. \u201cMs. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said his office was alerted to the fraud by former Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates, who went on to work as an attorney with the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department. He has since left that post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d Page said. \u201cI quickly referred that to the district attorney to investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors confirmed that Yourex reported she had registered her dog, Maya Jean Yourex, to vote. The 2022 primary ballot cast in the dog\u2019s name was challenged and rejected because proof of residence and registration required for first-time voters in a federal election was not shown, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Yourex even posted a photo on social media of her dog in January 2022 with an \u201cI voted\u201d sticker.<\/p>\n
She also posted, in October 2024, a photograph of a vote-by-mail ballot with the caption \u201cMaya is still getting her ballot,\u201d despite the dog dying, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Page pointed out that federal law requires new voters to prove identification and residency, with state law requiring an affidavit. So if a voter is able to skirt the state law with a false attestation it would be flagged in a federal election when the proof of ID and residency is required, Page said.<\/p>\n
In the last election there were 571 voters who cast ballots that were flagged, with 121 fixing them by providing ID and proof of residency, Page said.<\/p>\n
Chapman University law professor Nahal Kazemi said last year when the defendant was charged that the prosecution of the case shows the system\u2019s checks and balances work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to use a pun here but this is the dog that didn\u2019t bark \u2014it\u2019s a scenario where the lack of voter fraud that happens is what makes this so unusual,\u201d Kazemi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least the second time the dog\u2019s vote was cast it was identified as an ineligible voter,\u201d Kazemi said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we expect to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kazemi insisted that voter fraud is minimal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t a lot of voter fraud and the system has checks in place, so if something anomalous happens it is possible to catch it,\u201d Kazemi said. \u201cTo treat it as the biggest problem in our electoral system is misguided.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 63-year-old Costa Mesa woman is scheduled to be sentenced in October for registering her dog to vote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,723,138,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-280225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}