A California dog owner has avoided a possible six-year prison sentence after registering her Boxer to vote, but her canine election partner is still facing a public reckoning.
The dog’s image will appear on anti-voter-fraud billboards throughout Orange County.
Laura Lee Yourex, 64, of Costa Mesa, had her case dismissed Monday after fulfilling a plea agreement that required her to pay $1,500 for four billboards featuring her late dog, Maya Jean, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.
The billboards along the 55 and 22 freeways deliver a blunt warning: “Don’t be a dog. Voter Fraud is a Crime. If you can’t legally vote, don’t vote. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office will prosecute.”
Yourex was charged with five felonies in September 2025 after registering Maya Jean to vote and submitting ballots in the dog’s name in the 2021 gubernatorial recall election and the 2022 primary.
Her potential legal jeopardy was substantially reduced under a plea deal. Prosecutors dismissed four felony counts after Yourex admitted to one misdemeanor charge of knowingly registering a nonexistent person as a voter.
She pleaded guilty on April 10, and the case was dismissed Oct. 13 after she completed the terms of the agreement.
The unusual voter-fraud case also left behind a trail of social media evidence. In January 2022, Yourex posted a photograph of Maya Jean wearing an “I voted” sticker while posing with a ballot.
In October 2024, she posted a picture of the dog’s identification tag beside another mail-in ballot, writing, “maya is still getting her ballot,” despite the fact that Maya Jean had already died.
The Orange County Registrar of Voters contacted prosecutors after Yourex disclosed that she had registered her dog and cast ballots under the animal’s name. That report prompted an investigation and ultimately led to the felony charges.
Yourex also detailed the conduct in a plea agreement she signed under penalty of perjury.
“On or about 5/7/20, in Orange County, I did willfully and unlawfully cause an animal, to wit: a dog, to be registered as a voter, knowing that animal was not entitled to registration as a nonexistent person, and mailed and delivered that affidavit to a county elections official.”
Maya Jean’s ballot was counted in the 2021 recall election, which Gov. Gavin Newsom survived. The dog’s ballot in the 2022 primary, however, was challenged and rejected.
The dog’s face will now be used as a voter-fraud warning through the Nov. 3 election, as California voters prepare to consider new requirements for voter identification.