We've all heard since we were old enough to vote that "every vote counts," and it's a mantra that Damion Green won't soon forget. The 40-year-old auto body shop worker ran for City Council in his hometown of Rainier, Washington, in November, but when it came time to vote, he declined to cast a ballot for himself, telling KING 5 that would've been "narcissistic." "[It felt] like stacking a deck in your favor," he adds to the Seattle Times.
That self-effacing move also proved to be a self-sabotaging one: After a hand recount, Green's opponent, Ryan Roth, won by one vote, 247 to 246. Roth had no issue voting for himself. "It's my right as an American, right?" he tells the Washington Post. His own actions, though, nearly led to a tie: Even though he'd meant to vote early, life got in the way, and Roth almost didn't vote at all—until his wife nagged him and he sent his ballot in at the last minute.
"That was the one vote," Roth tells the Times. And if there had been a tie? "I would have called tails on the coin toss," Roth notes (the last time there was a tie in Thurston County, in 2015, a coin toss was the deciding factor). Green, for his part, is resigned to what the election had in store for him. "The Lord didn't want me there, so I didn't get it," he shrugged, noting he might run again in two more years. "I don't feel discouraged at all." (More voting stories.)
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