GOP candidate voted in 2 of 16 state elections
ALLAS - Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney skipped voting in 14 of 16 elections since he registered to vote in Dallas County nearly five years ago, the Dallas Morning News reported yesterday.
The missed votes included the March Texas primary in which Cheney could have cast his ballot for Governor George W. Bush, now his running mate.
Cheney, campaigning yesterday in Connecticut, acknowledged that he did not vote in this year's Texas primary, but said he has voted ''in every federal primary and general election in the last 20-some years.''
Cheney said extensive travel has kept him from becoming involved in state or local politics.
''I traveled a great deal,'' he said. ''Dallas was my base. That's where I lived or was headquartered, but I was not involved in community affairs very extensively in Dallas. My focus was on global concerns.''
He voted in last month's Wyoming primary, but presidential candidates did not appear on those ballots, so Cheney did not have an opportunity to vote for Bush after re-registering there in July. In Wyoming, county party delegates last March cast votes for delegates to the national GOP convention.
County records in Texas examined by the paper show that Cheney registered to vote in December 1995 after moving to an upscale section of Dallas from the Washington, D.C., area as the new CEO of Halliburton, an oilfield services company.
The elections in which he voted were the November 1996 presidential election and the November 1998 race for governor and other state and local offices.
''It appears that Dick Cheney did not receive a major league vetting by George W. Bush,'' said Chris Lehane, spokesman for Democratic rival Al Gore. ''What this shows is that George W. Bush ... picked someone who not only was a member of the Republican old guard, not only someone who is a big oil executive, but someone who doesn't even vote all that often.''
Cheney's 2-for-16 vote record in Dallas compares with the five-for-six election participation rate of his Democratic rival, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, over the same period in Connecticut.
Although Cheney's role at Halliburton sent him on frequent trips away from Dallas, Texas election law has generous provisions for absentee voting.
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