Elliot Spitzer Didn't Vote in 2012...Despite Writing Op-Ed Titled, 'Why I Am Voting for Barack Obama

President Obama and Mitt Romney. (Getty Images)

Despite having penned an op-ed in 2012 titled, “Why I Am Voting for Barack Obama,” former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer never actually, you know, voted for President Barack Obama, his spokeswoman confirmed.

“Records filed with the city Board of Elections show that while some voters waited hours to cast their ballots, Spitzer was a no-show at his Upper East Side poll site on Nov. 6, 2012,” the New York Post reports.

“Nor did he submit an absentee ballot available to those who can’t vote in person,” the report adds.

So what was he doing? What’s Spitzer’s excuse? As it turns out, according to a Spitzer spokeswoman, the former governor couldn’t find time to vote because he was booked doing election coverage in San Francisco for Current TV, former Vice President Al Gore’s failed experiment in news television.

“That’s why he didn’t vote. There was not time for him to vote or get an absentee ballot,” said the spokeswoman, Lisa Linden.

But could he really not arrange voting by absentee ballot?

As the NY Post reminds us, any voter can show up in person to their local board office and apply for an absentee ballot up to one day before an election.

Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. (Getty Images)

“An absentee ballot sent by mail would have to be postmarked a week before Election Day,” the report notes.

“If he had moved quickly, Spitzer could have gotten in just under the wire. Current TV issued a press release on Oct. 31 announcing its planned Nov. 6 election-night coverage, a full week in advance,” the report adds.

So, again, what’s his excuse? There doesn’t appear to be one.

And while plenty of Americans don't vote, the fact that Spitzer wrote an op-ed on the importance of civic engagement for Slate’s website four days before the election makes his non-vote, well, odd.

“We’ve heard all the promises, excuses, smart lines and grotesque misrepresentations. Now it’s time to choose,” Spitzer wrote.

“And the choice is easy. On one hand is a leader who saved us from sure fiscal disaster, watched over a recuperating economy, preserved our national security and guided our nation’s international relations in rough waters,” his column added.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a “supply-side Reaganomics disciple” and “former moderate governor who became a pawn of an increasingly radical Republican Party,” Spitzer added in his article.

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Featured image Getty Images. This post has been updated.