A Washington state candidate found out the hard way that every vote counts – when he decided not to cast a ballot for himself and lost to his opponent by a single vote.
Damion Green, 40, of Rainier, ran for the City Council but did not want to vote for himself on Election Day in November, The Olympian reported.
”I didn’t feel comfortable. I thought it was kind of narcissistic, so I didn’t,” he told KING 5.
After three Thurston County elections workers conducted a hand recount of 555 ballots, Ryan Roth – who cast a ballot for himself — was declared the winner by a vote of 247 to 246.
“It just came down to my vote, I guess,” Roth, a 33-year-old landfill manager, told The Washington Post.
Roth said he almost didn’t vote, but his wife urged him to and he mailed in his ballot at the last moment.
“That was the one vote. We would’ve been tied. If we were tied, I would have called tails on the coin toss,” he told The Olympian.
Green, a 40-year-old auto body shop worker, attributed his loss to a lack of divine intervention.
“The Lord didn’t want me there, so I didn’t get it,” he told The Olympian.
“I don’t feel discouraged at all. We both have kids in the schools and are looking for the best thing for our community. We’re different people wanting the same thing,” he added.
Green told The Washington Post that he also ran for City Council about four years ago when he waged an unsuccessful write-in campaign.
He insisted that he did not regret his decision to abstain from voting last month.
“Everyone forgets it’s supposed to be kind of selfless,” Green told the newspaper.
Roth said he celebrated his razor-thin victory by taking his family to dinner at a Japanese restaurant before watching the Pac-12 championship game between Washington and Oregon.
“This was my first time running or being part of anything like this,” Roth told The Olympian. “For it to be such a close race, tied for a period of time, and then to win by one vote, was pretty insane.
“Your vote does count,” he said. “It does matter.”