Did dog illegally vote in California election? Sniffing out the truth

Rumors that a dog in California was successfully registered to vote and cast a ballot in an election circulated online in mid-February 2026. 

The claim was popularized on the social media platform X after a post (archived) asserting the rumor was shared by X chairman Elon Musk (archived). 

Some users pointed to the story as an example of alleged rampant voter fraud in the United States electoral system. 

I wonder who he voted for? 🤣 https://t.co/3LwkkAmARW

— sunny madra (@sundeep) February 17, 2026

The claim that a dog voted in a California election was true. A boxer named Maya, owned by 62-year-old Laura Lee Yourex of Costa Mesa, California, was registered to vote and successfully cast a ballot in 2021.

The Orange County district attorney’s office announced it would be prosecuting Yourex on voter fraud charges in a news release dated Sept. 5, 2025.

According to the release, Yourex was charged with five felonies: one count of perjury, one count of procuring or offering a false or forged document to be filed, two counts of casting a ballot when not entitled to vote and one count of registering a nonexistent person to vote.

The dog had votes cast in California’s 2021 gubernatorial recall election and the 2022 gubernatorial election, but only the 2021 vote was counted. It joined the majority of California voters rejecting the attempt to recall Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. The 2022 vote was “challenged and rejected,” according to the district attorney’s office. 

An investigation reportedly uncovered a social media post from January 2022 in which Yourex posted a photo of the dog wearing an “I voted” sticker and another from October 2024 that showed a vote-by-mail ballot with the dog’s name and a caption that said “Maya is still getting her ballot” despite the dog having died. Snopes was unable to locate any social accounts for Yourex as of this writing.

A search of Orange County court records showed that the case remained active as of this writing, with a hearing scheduled for early March 2026.

According to local TV news station KABC, Yourex’s lawyers emphasized that their client had never been in trouble with the law previously and read from a statement in which she said she “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.”

Snopes reached out to the Orange County district attorney’s office for an update on the proceedings and will update this article if we receive a response. 

U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif, made reference to Yourex and Maya during remarks about California’s Proposition 50 during a session of the House of Representatives on Sept. 19, 2025. The proposition, which was an effort to redraw congressional district lines to favor Democrats and counteract similar efforts in Texas and elsewhere, passed with 64% of the vote.

Kiley brought up Yourex’s case as an example of voter fraud allegedly running rampant in California, beginning at the 3:08:33 timestamp of a C-SPAN video capturing the entire session. He accurately summarized the situation and speculated that Yourex “probably” would have gotten away with it had she not posted about it on social media. 

“To be clear, dogs are not allowed to vote in California. And yet in this case, the animal did,” Kiley said. “So the question we have to ask, Mr. Speaker, is how in the world do we have so few safeguards on our electoral process in California that such a thing could ever happen?”

Kiley later posted the clip of his remarks about Yourex on his Facebook page.

Sources