Report: Cheney Skipped 14 Elections in 5 Years

D A L L A S, Sept. 8 -- 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 today.

The missed votes included the March Texas primary in which Cheney could have cast his ballot for his future running mate, Gov. George W. Bush.

Cheney, campaigning today in Vermont, acknowledged that he did not vote in this year’s Texas primary, but said he voted in Wyoming’s primary, held in August.

“This year, in the primary, I voted in Wyoming. I moved back toWyoming,” he said.

Presidential candidates did not appear on ballots in Wyoming’s August primary, so Cheney did not have an opportunity to vote for Bush after reregistering there in July. In Wyoming, county party delegates last March cast votes for delegates to the national GOP convention in a nonbinding presidential straw poll.

Voted in Last Presidential Election

County records in Texas examined by the paper show 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 oilfield services company Halliburton.

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.

To avoid a constitutional conflict with running mates from the same state, Cheney changed his voter registration to Wyoming, his home state, in July, days before being tapped by Bush. He has since voted in the GOP presidential primary there.

“It appears that Dick Cheney did not receive a major-leaguevetting by George W. Bush,” said Chris Lehane, spokesman forDemocratic rival Al Gore. “What this shows is that George W. Bush … picked someone who not only was a member of the Republican oldguard, not only someone who is a big oil executive, but someone whodoesn’t even vote all that often.”