Bruce Boyer puts on his signature Stetson hat and describes himself as a cowboy, businessman, perennial political candidate and dancer.

The Ventura County resident is also a critic of the state election process.

During several Ventura County Board of Supervisors meetings last year, Boyer, 63, voiced his complaints about the ease of registering to vote and the apparent lack of oversight. At a June meeting, he asked whether it was possible to register a cartoon cat as a voter.

“If so, then the entire system is a fraud,” he said during the meeting. “It’s that simple. Let’s take a look at it.”

Now, about six months later, prosecutors in Ventura County allege Boyer attempted to register various fictitious cats to vote in the months leading up to the November election.

Authorities said they began investigating four voter registration forms after the Ventura County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Office flagged them as suspicious. Although authorities did not elaborate on what caused their concerns, court records show that the applications all listed the cats’ names: Cool T. Cat, Estrea D. Tigre, Fritz T. Cat and Sylvester T. Cat.

In an interview, Boyer did not say whether he had registered the cats.

Read more: Canadian citizen pleads guilty after illegally voting in Orange County in 2016

Boyer is charged with four counts of perjury in connection with the voter registration forms. He has not yet entered a plea, according to court records.

Prosecutors allege that each fraudulent registration form contained Boyer’s home address and was signed under penalty of perjury, and that the handwriting appeared to match the writing on Boyer’s previous forms that he filled out when running for public office.

Boyer, a Republican, had previously tried to run for sheriff but was blocked because he had no law enforcement experience. He also unsuccessfully ran for clerk and recorder in Ventura County in 2022. He was among the candidates vying for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for California’s 26th Congressional District. He lost in the March primary.

Two of the cat applications were “tainted with an unknown substance and gave off a foul odor,” according to Dist. Atty. Investigator Gabby Rodriguez argued in a statement for Boyer’s bail to be increased. He was ultimately released on his own recognizance, Boyer said.

Boyer told the Times in an interview Thursday that investigators brought the completed forms to his home to question him about them and did not mention that they might have been contaminated with any substance. He said each of the forms listed the political party as the American Feline Party.

When asked if he filled out cat voter registration forms, Boyer replied that it was “very plausible.”

“I mean, they have my address,” he said. “But since I have spoken out publicly and been very vocal about Felix The Cat, it could have been someone else.”

Boyer said he suspects the charges are politically motivated and brought by people who don’t appreciate him challenging the status quo.

Voter fraud has been on Boyer’s mind for some time, particularly since 2022, when a neighbor of Boyer’s admitted to registering his cat to vote.

Read more: Former Colorado county clerk sentenced to 9 years in prison for election system data breach

Boyer said he wondered if it was possible, so he tried it himself under the name Felix T. Cat, he said. He didn’t provide a social security number or a driver’s license number (of course, Felix doesn’t have one either). The foreign minister followed up on the request because it was not signed, he said.

“All I had to do to commit voter fraud was sign ‘Felix the Cat,’ put it in the mail, it would have been recorded in the county clerk’s office and Felix the Cat would have gotten a ballot in the mail,” he said to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in January. “I believe that when things are valuable, crooks will try to steal them.”

In most cases, voters in California are not required to show ID before casting their ballot. However, those who vote for the first time after registering by mail without providing a Social Security number, driver’s license or state identification number “could be asked to show identification” when voting, according to the California secretary of state.

Boyer said the most important question surrounding cat voter registration forms still needs to be answered.

“They showed me completed voter registration forms. Did they register them to vote? “If not, why not?” he said.

“You might well come to the conclusion that maybe the only way to actually expose it is to put the rubber to the road, because telling people you can register a cartoon cat is a very different thing to say, “Holy shit, here’s a voter registration card for a cartoon cat,” he said.

Sign up for Essential California to get news, features and recommendations from the LA Times and beyond delivered to your inbox six days a week.

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.