{"id":281261,"date":"2026-04-23T01:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/281261\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T01:48:09","slug":"california-woman-registered-dog-to-vote-cast-ballots-for-the-pooch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/281261\/","title":{"rendered":"California woman registered dog to vote, cast ballots for the pooch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>She might have got away with it, too, if it weren\u2019t for a few pesky posts.<\/p>\n<p>Costa Mesa resident Laura Lee Yourex, 63, who bragged on social media about registering her dog to vote and subsequently cast multiple election ballots in the animal\u2019s name, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of \u201cknowing registration of a nonexistent person to vote\u201d earlier this month in Orange County Superior Court.<\/p>\n<p>She is set to be sentenced Oct. 16. <\/p>\n<p>As part of her agreement to plead guilty, prosecutors will dismiss four felony counts of perjury, procurement or false or forged document to be filed, and two counts of not being entitled to vote in an election.<\/p>\n<p>The misdemeanor count she pleaded to was also initially a felony <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/orangecountyda.org\/press\/costa-mesa-woman-charged-with-five-felonies-for-illegally-registering-her-dog-to-vote-casting-mail-in-ballots-sent-to-dog-in-two-elections\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">when she was originally charged last September<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As originally charged, Yourex had faced up to six years in state prison. It is unclear what penalties she faces as a result of her plea.<\/p>\n<p>The Orange County district attorney\u2019s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday, nor did Yourex\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n<p>Yourex was charged with mailing in ballots for the 2021 California <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2021-09-14\/recall-election-california-newsom-results\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gubernatorial recall election<\/a> and the 2022 primary election, according to the district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>The ballots were sent in the name of her dog, Maya Jean Yourex, a boxer.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said Maya\u2019s ballot was counted in the recall election, but rejected the following year.<\/p>\n<p>It is unknown how \u201cMaya\u201d voted, and records indicate she was registered as no party preference. Yourex was a registered Republican as of 2020. <\/p>\n<p>Yourex bragged on social media about the fraudulent votes in January 2022. She allegedly shared a post that included an \u201cI Voted\u201d sticker affixed to the brown boxer as she posed with an illegal ballot, according to the district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>Another ballot was mailed in Maya\u2019s name in October 2024, though the dog had recently died, prosecutors said. Yourex posted a photo of the ballot and the boxer\u2019s dog tags with a caption that read, \u201cmaya is still getting her ballot,\u201d according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>The Orange County registrar of voters office contacted the district attorney about Yourex, who it said self-reported the issue. <\/p>\n<p>To be eligible to vote in California, residents must submit an Affidavit of Registrations that includes their name, residence, mailing address, date of birth, political party preference and certification that they are a citizen, according to the state Elections Code.<\/p>\n<p>Submitting a false affidavit could constitute perjury, officials say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She might have got away with it, too, if it weren\u2019t for a few pesky posts. Costa Mesa&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26784,1052,7167,11678,7,9,8,29997,2899,6876,37481,9985,1554,346,15757,17803,7214,120944],"class_list":["post-281261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-affidavit","tag-attorney","tag-ballot","tag-boxer","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-woman","tag-dog","tag-felony-count","tag-maya","tag-misdemeanor","tag-name","tag-office","tag-party-preference","tag-perjury","tag-prosecutor","tag-yourex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281261","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=281261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}