An American woman prosecuted for registering her dog to vote appeared in a California court on Tuesday and faces up to six years in prison.

Laura Yourex posted a photo on social media showing her dog, Maya Jean, wearing an "I Voted" sticker after the 2021 California gubernatorial election.

The animal also voted in the primaries for the 2022 federal midterm elections.

In another post in October 2024, she showed that the deceased dog was still receiving a ballot addressed to her in the mail.

The 62-year-old American reported herself last year to authorities in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. After an investigation, the local prosecutor's office filed charges.

During a brief initial appearance on Tuesday, Yourex's lawyer, Jaime Coulter, said she had attempted to demonstrate the weaknesses of the American electoral system.

electoral system, with the aim of improving it by demonstrating that even a dog can be registered on the electoral lists," he assured the press on the sidelines of the hearing.

In California, U.S. citizens do not need to show proof of identity to vote. They can do so by submitting a sworn affidavit detailing their name, address, and date of birth. They can be prosecuted for perjury if they falsify this affidavit.

However, "proof of residency and registration is required for first-time voters in a federal election," the Orange County prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Under this system, the ballot cast in the dog's name "was challenged and rejected in the 2022 primaries," he said.

Maya Jean's vote, however, was "counted" in the 2021 California gubernatorial election, according to prosecutors.

The reliability of elections is a hot topic in the United States, fueling numerous conspiracy theories, especially since Donald Trump refused to acknowledge his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

But multiple independent audits have confirmed the robustness of the American electoral system and the absence of major fraud that could distort federal results.

AFP