Dan Saban, King of the Undervotes

By Ray Stern As New Times reported yesterday, when Republicans in Maricopa County saw Andrew Thomas' name on Tuesday's ballot, nearly 18 percent chose not to vote for County Attorney. But Dan Saban, Democratic candidate for Maricopa County sheriff, convinced an even smaller fraction of his own party to vote...

By Ray Stern

September 4, 2008

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By Ray Stern

As New Times reported yesterday, when Republicans in Maricopa County saw Andrew Thomas' name on Tuesday's ballot, nearly 18 percent chose not to vote for County Attorney.

But Dan Saban, Democratic candidate for Maricopa County sheriff, convinced an even smaller fraction of his own party to vote for him. Unofficial results reported Thursday by the Maricopa County Elections Department show that of 112,816 Democrats who voted in the primary election, more than 22 percent chose not to vote for any sheriff.

The news gets worse from there for Saban, who ran against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2004 as a Republican. Various write-in candidates for sheriff drew another 5,000 votes from Democrats. That means about 27 percent of Democrats failed to vote for Saban, the only named candidate for sheriff on the Democratic ballot. Arpaio did better on Tuesday, drawing 86 percent of Republican votes to Saban's 73 percent of Democrat votes.

This low "C" grade implies Saban needs to step it up if he's serious about his campaign.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.