As the November 8 election approaches, The Stranger looked into the voting histories of our state's most esteemed leaders—local billionaires, rockers, authors, and broken moral compasses—because, well, why the fuck not? These people are often stumping for their own pet issues on local or national platforms, some of them this election cycle, coughcoughKemperFreemanhackhackhack, and we wanted to know: Are they voting themselves?
But first, our methodology: We began by pouring a trough of stiff drinks, then researching when each person became a registered voter in Washington and cross-referencing that with their voting records on statevoices.org, which notes if a person has voted in any given primary, general, or special election. (For our purposes, we only counted the 11 general and primary elections between 2000 and 2010—meaning that a perfect voting record would be 11 GE votes and 11 primary votes.) Then we grouped the celebrities to more easily cast judgment upon them.* Note: We excluded most political officials because they are not real celebrities.
Musicians:
Krist Novoselic, Nirvana, Foo Fighters
11 General Elections, 6 primary
Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jammer and outspoken voter advocate
5 GE, 1 primary
Ann Wilson, half of Heart
4 GE, 2 primary
Ben Gibbard, Death Cab for Cutie
4 GE, 1 primary
The Men Behind Initiative I-1125:
Kemper Freeman, Bellevue mall owner
11 GE, 9 primary
Tim Eyman, initiative troll
9 GE, 10 primary
Men Rich Enough to Have You Killed But Mostly Too Lazy to Vote:
Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
11 GE, 10 primary
Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
6 GE, 3 primary
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
5 GE, 2 primary
Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder
5 GE, 1 primary
Jeff Bezos, Amazon mogul
5 GE, 0 primary
Beloved Authors:
Tom Robbins, Jitterblerg Perblerg (none of his sentences makes actual sense)
11 GE, 9 primary
Nancy Pearl, Book Lust
10 GE, 8 primary
Ann Rule, Kill Me Again, stab stab stab
10 GE, 5 primary
Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy...
10 GE, 4 primary
Sherman Alexie, Flight, Seattle Sonics's Last Fan Standing
9 GE, 10 primary
Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash
8 GE, 1 primary
People Who Want Senator Maria Cantwell's Job:
Maria Cantwell
11 GE, 10 primary
Susan Hutchison, retired TV news head, failed King County Exec candidate
10 GE, 6 primaries
Broken Moral Compasses:
Pastor Ken "No Buttsex" Hutcherson
9 GE, 9 primary
Keli Carender, Tea Party founder
9 GE, 6 primary
Pastor Mark "Masturbation is sinly and so is Avatar, the movie" Driscoll
4 GE, 0 primary
Quick, a Rapper Vote Off!
Macklemore, raps about Seattle and sneakers
5 GE, 1 primary
Sir Mix-a-Lot, raps about carz and butts
2 GE, 0 primary
The Space Needle and Tom Skerritt:
Jeff Wright, born lucky
11 GE, 1 primary
Tom Skerritt, actor, grandfather of happy hours
9 GE, 6 primary
Dale "I make people make glass" Chihuly
8 GE, 7 primary
Radio Personalities:
Cliff Mass, weather and science geek
11 GE, 10 primary
Rick Steves, travel guru
11 GE, 7 primary
Steve Scher, he does that one thing some people don't like
9 GE, 8 primary
Tom Douglas, sandwiches, etc.
9 GE, 6 primary
Other:
Benjamin John Francis Fodor (secret identity: clumsy superhero Phoenix Jones!)
Has never voted
*We're not above criticism ourselves—no one at The Stranger has a perfect voting record except Goldy, who has nothing better to do than fucking vote all the time and is downright gleeful about it.