Lena Dunham Didn’t Vote? ‘Girls’ Creator Slams Reports She Failed To Cast Ballot
Girls creator Lena Dunham is firing back at reports that claimed the actress didn’t vote in the 2004 or 2012 presidential elections.
Room Eight New York cited a Slate article from October 2012 as the jumping off point of its “Dunham didn’t vote” crusade. The article stated that Dunham was 18 in 2004, meaning that she was of legal to vote in the election between John Kerry and George W. Bush.
“If voting is so important,” Slate writer L.V. Anderson pondered, “why didn’t she vote when she first had the chance?”
In an update, the Slate article said that Dunham had registered in Manhattan to vote in the 2008 election, but not the 2004 election or any local elections between the two. Room Eight took it a bit further and dug up a New York City’s voter file and reported that a Lena Dunham registered to vote in Brooklyn did not vote in the 2012 general election.
It would look bad for Dunham, who endorsed President Obama in a web ad called “Your First Time,” didn’t vote for the man she campaigned for. But according to her, reports that she did not participate in the 2004 and 2012 elections are not true.
The 26-year-old went on Twitter to defend herself against the rumors that she did not vote. In a series of tweets, she explained that she had to return to New York in order to vote. She wrote:
Hey kids, some people on the internet are saying I didn’t vote. Some of them are still mad I used a sexy metaphor re: voting. Read on:
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) February 7, 2013
I did vote. I tried to get an absentee ballot but, because our nation’s voting system is a steampunk cornmaze, it didn’t arrive. — Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) February 7, 2013
So not to be a martyr about it but I flew to New York to vote. I wasn’t sure if my change of address had officially been registered so… — Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) February 7, 2013
…I went to my old polling place with my dad, where they let me vote by affidavit (what was totally allowed.)
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) February 7, 2013
Obviously I voted for Romney. I hope everyone has a nice day.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) February 7, 2013
According to E! News, a representative for the New York State Board of Elections was unable to locate Dunham’s voter record in the state database, but there were several factors that could explain the missing file. The first is that those affected by Hurricane Sandy were permitted to vote by affidavit at any polling place in the state, like Dunham said. But because of the large number of voters displaced by the storm, not all of them were credited for voting in the election.
