An OC Board of Supervisors majority said no when two members wanted to talk about directing OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page to detail plans to ensure “the immediate integrity and ongoing validation” of the upcoming November election, days after a Costa Mesa woman was accused of registering and casting two ballots under her dog’s name.
On Friday, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said the woman voted using her dog’s registration in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election of Gavin Newsom and the 2022 primary election.
On Tuesday, Third District Supervisor Don Wagner and First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen wanted to add an emergency item to the Board of Supervisors’ meeting agenda to direct Page to act on several fronts, weeks before ballots go out in the November special election.
Their three colleagues said no.
Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said it did not meet the merits of what constituted an emergency item to discuss and said it was better to defer to the DA’s office.
“I think it waters down and it dilutes what an actual emergency is,” Sarmiento said. “I don’t see that this is one of them.
“I certainly think that it was an interesting story that I read about. But again, I think that’s something that we can certainly defer to the DA’s office,” he added. “I feel that they are pursuing this. They’ve already charged the owner of that animal with five felony counts. I think that’s the proper way to move forward on this.”
If the board had approved the item, it would have directed the Page to act on several fronts:
• Immediately investigate and remove any non-humans from the county’s voter rolls
• Make available to the public and media any voter registration records and voting history files related to known or suspected non-human registrants
• Return to the board in seven days with a “detailed plan to ensure the immediate integrity and ongoing validation of Orange County’s voter rolls” ahead of the Nov. 4 election
Both Wagner and Nguyen vowed to bring the item up again at a future meeting. This was the second meeting in a row where Wagner and Nguyen did not win enough support to give formal direction to the registrar’s office.
Before the vote, Wagner stressed the urgency to act on the item since on Wednesday, Sept. 9, the registrar’s office will start running voter files to print ballots.
“And so we need to get on this today,” Wagner said, “to see what the registrar is doing. How a dog got registered? What we’re doing to see whether other dogs are registered? What are we doing to find out if any cats are registered?”
Ballots are set to go out in the coming weeks for November’s Proposition 50 election, where voters will decide if California should redraw its congressional maps.
In an emailed statement Tuesday following the meeting, Page confirmed that his office would start running voter files for printing ballots on Wednesday. The deadline, he said, for issuing ballots to military and overseas voters is Sept. 20. The deadline to start mailing ballots to local registered voters is Oct. 6.
“But, we continue to update voters’ records on a daily basis based on information provided by voters and official government sources,” Page said. “If a change to a voter record is made after Sept. 10, a voted ballot will be processed based on the most current information.”
“For example, if a voter dies and their ballot is cast, the ballot would only be counted if the ballot was cast before the voter died and the signature on the envelope compares to the voter’s signatures on file,” Page said.
Board Chair Doug Chaffee called Wagner and Nguyen’s item an “impossible request” since there was no money provided.
“I think the key is what the district attorney is doing,” Chaffee said, “prosecuting the perpetrator. That should be a lesson to all. It’s a serious offense when you register somebody that is not you, whether it be a dog, cat or a different persona that is not your own.”
Nguyen suggested that the OC Animal Care shelter could pull from the pet license database and cross-reference it with the voter registration rolls to see if any more animals might be registered to vote.
Laura Lee Yourex, the Costa Mesa woman prosecutors allege registered her dog, Maya, to vote, was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, but that was pushed back until Dec. 10, according to a spokesperson for the DA’s office.
Yourex was a registered Republican voter who registered her dog as no party preference, which Supervisor Katrina Foley alleged was in order to vote in favor of the recall of the governor in 2022.
“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,” Jaime Coulter, Yourex’s defense attorney, said in a statement. “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 ballot that was cast was challenged and rejected because proof of residence and registration required of first-time voters was not shown, according to prosecutors.
City News Service contributed to this report.