Joey Gibson, founder of the group Patriot Prayer, wants his supporters to get out the vote in August. He’s one of several Republican candidates seeking to unseat three-time incumbent Sen. Maria Cantwell — even if, as he said when he announced his candidacy, it would “take a miracle” for him to win.
“Make sure you are registered to vote in the State of Washington,” reads a post on his “Joey Gibson For U.S. Senate” Facebook page from July 2.
Gibson’s plea to voters sits at odds with the candidate’s own record, however. According to Clark County voting records, the first — and only — election that Gibson voted in was the 2016 general election.
When asked why he didn’t vote prior to 2016, Gibson aired some common grievances: he felt like his vote didn’t matter; he felt like the system was rigged; he felt like Republicans and Democrats were working together.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, “was an outsider… someone who the Republicans and the Democrats hated,” Gibson said, adding that seeing Trump’s supporters being attacked in the streets by protestors “fired me up in a way that I’d never been fired up.”
“At that moment in time, I looked at myself and said, ‘What have I ever done to do anything for this country? Not a damn thing.'”
Gibson hasn’t voted since 2016, either. He has sat out four of the five elections he was eligible for, and a review of voting records by The Columbian shows he has the lowest participation of the 47 Clark County-based candidates who will be appearing on the August ballot.
For the most part, Clark County candidates appear to be diligent voters, with the majority of them missing only one or two elections since 2013. Several candidates, including Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey, have not missed a vote in the last five years, if not longer.
Kimsey on local elections, presidential primaries
Twelve of the 47 candidates did not vote in the 2016 presidential primary. Kimsey said that presidential primaries were unique in that they required voters to make their party preference publicly known, and that this might be a deterrent to some voters.
“You might speculate that someone who didn’t participate in the presidential primary did not want their party preference to be known — or maybe they don’t have a political party preference,” he said.
Of those 12 candidates, five are running for city or local nonpartisan office, and two stated no party preference.
Kimsey also noted that voter turnout is typically lower in odd-number years than in even-number years, and that voters are more inclined to participate in general elections than in primaries. (For example, half of all Clark County voters cast a ballot in the 2014 general election, whereas one-third did in the 2015 general election.) Elections in odd-number years, he said, typically relate to non-partisan offices — but can have “more direct impact than the president or a member of Congress.”
“These local races, from sewer districts to Clark Public Utilities, fire districts — those are offices that have a real, direct impact on peoples’ lives,” Kimsey said.
Jiles, Hinds dispute voting records
Gibson is not the only candidate who votes less often than not. Damion E. Jiles, Sr., who is challenging incumbent Paul Harris for his seat in the 17th Legislative District of the State House of Representatives, and Robert Hinds, who is running for Clark County treasurer, also have low participation in elections.
According to his voting record, Jiles first voted in Clark County in the 2016 general election despite having been an eligible voter since 2014. However, he claims that he registered to vote in Clark County in 2012 and had not missed an election since that year’s general election.
“Before, I was registered to vote in Texas — I was in the military, so I was still registered to vote there,” Jiles said.
Hinds moved to Clark County in 2012, and has voted only three times since then, in the 2013, 2014 and 2016 general elections. Hinds does not vote in primaries or special elections –“that’s not to say I don’t pay attention to them and I’m not interested in them,” he said — but he said he recalled voting in 2017.
“When I look at my voting history online, it shows three ballots submitted in general elections, and I seem to remember submitting more,” he said.
Upon reviewing Jiles and Hinds’ voting records, Kimsey said that the records were correct and that there were no instances of either candidate having a ballot be challenged or rejected.
“In 20 years, I’m not aware of ever receiving a ballot from a voter, and our not having any record of it,” he said.
Not-so-new faces
Three candidates — Carolyn Long, Christy Stanley and Norbert Schlecht — registered to vote in Clark County within the last year. Stanley and Schlecht, who are running for Clark County council chair and assessor respectively, have no elections on their voting records in Clark County, while Long has one. (Schlecht did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Stanley, a council chair candidate, was previously registered to vote in Kitsap County, and said that she had been “living on-and-off” in Clark County for about two years while getting licensed to open up a recreational marijuana shop. (Stanley owns three stores in Kitsap, Pierce and Clark counties, though local bans on such businesses have prevented her from opening up the latter two.) She said that going through the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board’s “rigorous vetting process” might have caused her to miss an election, but she was unsure.
Long, who moved to Clark County from Marion County, Ore., last year, missed a special election in 2013 and a primary in 2014. Long is running for Herrera Beutler’s seat in the House of Representatives. She disputed notions that she was a “carpetbagger” who had no ties to Clark County, citing her 22 years as a professor of political science at Washington State University in Vancouver.
“I would say comfortably that I know more about the politics of Southwest Washington than Salem,” Long said. “This is where I spend most of my working time.”
