Donning his signature Stetson hat, Bruce Boyer proclaims himself to be a cowboy, a businessman, a perennial political candidate and a dancer.
The Ventura County resident is also a critic of the state elections process.
In the last year, during several Ventura County Board of Supervisor meetings, Boyer, 63, has aired grievances about the ease of registering to vote and the apparent lack of oversight. At a June meeting, he posed the question of whether it is possible for someone to register a cartoon cat to vote.
“If it is, the entire system is fraud,” he said during the meeting. “Simple as that. Let’s look into that.”
Now, roughly six months later, prosecutors in Ventura County are alleging Boyer attempted to register various fictitious felines to vote in the months preceding the November election.
Authorities said they began looking into four voter registration forms after the Ventura County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Office flagged them as being suspicious. Though authorities did not specify what prompted their concerns, court records show the applications all listed the names of cats: Cool T. Cat, Estrea D. Tigre, Fritz T. Cat and Sylvester T. Cat.
In an interview, Boyer was vague about whether he registered the cats.
Boyer is facing four felony counts of perjury in connection to the voter registration forms. He has not yet entered a plea, according to court records.
Prosecutors allege that each fraudulent registration form included Boyer’s home address and was signed under penalty of perjury, and the handwriting appeared to be consistent with the writing on Boyer’s previous forms filled out while running for public office.
Boyer, a Republican, had previously tried to run for sheriff but was blocked because he did not have law enforcement experience. He also made an unsuccessful bid for Ventura County clerk and recorder in 2022. He was among the candidates vying for a U.S. House seat representing California’s 26th Congressional District. He lost in the March primary.
Two of the cat applications were “stained with an unknown substance and emitted a foul odor,” Dist. Atty. Investigator Gabby Rodriguez wrote in a declaration in support of increasing Boyer’s bail. He ultimately was released on his own recognizance, Boyer said.
Boyer told The Times in an interview on Thursday that investigators brought the completed forms to his home to question him about them and didn’t mention that they may have been tainted with any substance. He said each of the forms listed the political party as the American Feline Party.
When asked whether he filled out the cat voter registration forms, Boyer replied that it’s “very plausible.”
“I mean they do have my address,” he said. “But then again, since I made public comments, and I have been very vocal about Felix The Cat, it could have been somebody else too.”
Boyer said he suspects the charges are politically motivated, brought by those who don’t appreciate him questioning the status quo.
Voter fraud has been on Boyer’s mind for some time, particularly since 2022 when a neighbor of Boyer admitted to registering his cat to vote.
Boyer said he wondered if it was possible, and so he tried it himself using the name Felix T. Cat, he said. He didn’t provide a Social Security number or driver’s license number (of course Felix doesn’t have either). The secretary of state followed up on the application because it was not signed, he said.
“All that was needed to do, for me to commit voter fraud was to sign Felix The Cat, throw it in the mail, it would have been registered at the county clerk’s office and Felix The Cat would have gotten a ballot by mail,” he told the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in January. “I believe that if things are valuable, crooks will look to steal them.”
In most cases, voters in California are not required to show identification before casting a ballot. However, those who are voting for the first time after registering by mail without providing a Social Security number, driver’s license or state identification number “may be asked to show a form of identification” when they go to the polls, according to the California secretary of state.
According to Boyer, the most important question related to the feline voter registration forms has yet to be answered.
“They showed me completed voter registration forms. Did they register them to vote? If not, why not?” he said.
“One could well conclude that maybe the only way to actually expose it is to put the rubber to the road because telling people you could register a cartoon cat is very different from saying holy sh—, here’s a voter registration for a cartoon cat,” he said.
