Orange County woman who registered dog to vote said she did so to ‘expose flaws’ in voting system

Laura Lee Yourex faces a series of felonies for registering her dog to vote in 2021 and 2022. (KCAL/KCBS via CNN Newsource)

ORANGE COUNTY, California -- The Orange County woman who faces a series of felonies for registering her dog to vote in 2021 and 2022 made her first court appearance on Tuesday, saying through her legal team that she did so to “expose flaws” in California’s voting system.

Laura Lee Yourex, 62, of Costa Mesa, was charged with five felonies last week as she registered her dog, Maya, to vote in the 2021 gubernatorial recall election and the 2022 primary election, Orange County District Attorney prosecutors said.

“The dog’s vote was successfully counted in the 2021 gubernatorial recall election but was rejected in the 2022 primary,” said the DOJ’s office in a release.

During Tuesday’s appearance, Yourex did not enter a plea for the five felonies she faces, which include one count of perjury, one count of procuring or offering a false or forged document to be filed, one count of registering a non-existent person to vote and two counts of casting a ballot when not entitled to vote. Her arraignment was postponed until December.

“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,” said her attorney, Jaime Coulter, while reading a statement outside of the courthouse in Santa Ana on Tuesday. “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.”

The case caused concern amongst Orange County leaders on Tuesday during a meeting. Two members of the county’s Board of Supervisors pushed for an emergency motion to have voter rules examined, but it failed.

One of those supervisors was District 1’s Janet Nguyen, who wants to have the county’s dog license records reviewed in order to expose illegal voters.

“If we can cross-reference the addresses and the names to see, is there potentially a name that could be suspicious and then we can say, ‘Wait a minute, let’s flag this,” Nguyen said while speaking with CBS News Los Angeles.

Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of Voters, said that his office received a report about a fictitious voter last year.

“We take voter fraud very serious,” Page said. “When I received a report in October that there may have been a fictitious person who was registered to vote, and had voted, attempted to vote in two elections, we referred that immediately to the district attorney to investigate and he ultimately filed charges.”

Supervisor Katrina Foley said that since the presidential election last year, 175,000 names have been removed from the county’s voter files.

“They moved, they died, they were ineligible to vote,” she said. “I don’t support what I think is an anti-democratic way to try to test our system. People should be held accountable for that.”

Records show that Yourex is a registered Republican, but Maya was listed as having no party preference.

Yourex faces up to six years in state prison if convicted as charged of the five felonies.