The Seattle Times has an article today on the four executive level candidates in our area and their voting record over the past eight years. They point out that Mallahan has missed 13 elections, McGinn, 4, and Hutchison, 8. Constantine is the only one of the four who has a perfect voting record.
But when one reads further, none of the elections the three have missed have been in the general election, with the exception of Mallahan who missed one, and most of them weren't even primaries but school levies and last year's presidential primary, which didn't count at all for Democrats and didn't mean a whole lot to Republicans since both parties chose all or most of their delegates by caucus and by the time the primary had rolled around to Washington the decision was already pretty much made on the Republican side. And my favorite: Hutchison didn't vote in the Viaduct Replacement Advisory Vote. Wow, she's sure shirking her civic responsibility, she didn't vote in an election that's results didn't mean anything!
Hutchison also points out that she doesn't believe she missed that many votes. Perfectly plausible considering the history of King County Elections and their accuracy level that any bank would envy.
But regardless of how many votes these candidates did or did not miss, this is a pretty far stretch for a news story. And, as one Times commenter aptly points out, doesn't the right to vote also include the right not to vote?
Posted by MarkGriswold at September 30, 2009 09:13 AM | Email ThisWhile a civil duty like voting should be optional for the rest of us, we should expect those who want to run our democracy to be more involved than missing 13 elections would allow.
Though I do agree that Presidential Primary was meaningless and much different than all the other primaries and votes that did matter.
Posted by: John Jensen on September 30, 2009 09:49 AMDoes that include voting when you're actually in office, and voting as the duty of the office expects?
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on September 30, 2009 02:27 PMNot sure why, but I'm a bit skeptical about someone who has a perfect record of voting at every opportunity!
The right to vote certainly includes the right to abstain.
Posted by: Mom on September 30, 2009 03:32 PMI don't totally follow your question, but I'd expect someone who is elected to participate in every single election. It's kind of trivial on the range of issues to consider, true, but for folks like Mallahan and Hutchison who are outsiders from the political world it isn't inspiring to see them miss so many elections and particularly recent ones.
The Seattle Times endorsed Mallahan in the primary. If this is their way of playing favorites they sure are stupid.
Posted by: John Jensen on September 30, 2009 09:17 PMI wonder if they will do a story on Reichert's 2010 opponent Susan DelBene, who has a spotty voting record.
Posted by: travis t on October 1, 2009 01:22 AMA lot of conservatives are going to take this option next year if the Republicans don't get their act together.
Yeah, it's a non-story.
Posted by: Steve on October 1, 2009 10:32 AMObama won the election, Dan. Please get over it.
Posted by: John Jensen on October 1, 2009 11:15 AMI don't care so much about KC Exec... but I do for Mayor. Why should I support someone for Executive of the City who apparently doesn't care enough to evaluate candidates for City office in the primary, or to vote for/against the person he's replacing and ran against, or on issues like levies?
It makes Mallahan look like a rich guy who dumped over $200,000 into a race to buy himself something fun to do.
Posted by: Mickymse on October 1, 2009 02:34 PM