Here at Slate, we’re unabashed fans of ascendant auteur Lena Dunham, so of course we watched—and highly enjoyed—her adorable new campaign ad for Barack Obama, in which she says your first time (voting, that is) should be with someone really special: 
 
 Together with Monday’s “You Don’t Own Me” get-out-the-vote ad, in which Dunham and other young female writers, actors, directors, and artists lip-synched Lesley Gore’s 1963 classic as facts about Republicans’ opposition to reproductive rights flashed onscreen, Dunham’s “Your First Time” is proof of the Democrats’ savvy in appealing to the portion of the population that some might describe as hipsters. 
 
 There’s only one problem with Dunham’s appeal to first-time voters. In the new ad, Dunham says, “My first time voting was amazing … I went to the polling station. I pulled back the curtain. I voted for Barack Obama.” But Dunham was born on May 13, 1986. That means she was 18 and change when John Kerry faced off against George W. Bush in November 2004. If voting is so important, why didn’t she vote when she first had the chance? 
 
 
 
 To be fair, I’d rather lose my voting virginity to Barack Obama than John Kerry, too. Plus, Dunham's vote probably wouldn't have meant much at the time. She spent her freshman year of college at the New School in New York and only transferred to Oberlin—located in the crucial swing state of Ohio—after Bush had been sworn into his second term. 
 
 ||||| LENA DUNHAM (in a video supporting President Obama’s re-election): Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy. It should be with a guy with beautiful … somebody who really cares about and understands women. 
 
 A guy who cares about whether you get health insurance, and specifically whether you get birth control. The consequences are huge. You want to do it with a guy who brought the troops out of Iraq. You don’t want a guy who says, “Oh hey, I’m at the library studying,” when he’s really out not signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act. 
 
 Or who thinks that gay people should never have beautiful, complicated weddings of the kind we see on Bravo or TLC all the time. It’s a fun game to say, “Who are you voting for?” and they say “I don’t want to tell you,” and you say, “No, who are you voting for,” and they go, “Guess!” 
 
 Think about how you want to spend those four years. In college age time, that’s 150 years. Also, it’s super uncool to be out and about and someone says, “Did you vote,” and “No, I didn’t vote, I wasn’t ready.” 
 
 My first time voting was amazing. It was this line in the sand. Before I was a girl. Now I was a woman. I went to the polling station and pulled back the curtain. I voted for Barack Obama. 
 
 The actual story of the cherries jubilee celebrating the loss of Lena Dunham’s virginity is somewhat less romantic. 
 
 She waited what is, in these times, considered to be an indecent interval (her sophomore year in college). The guy wasn’t particularly beautiful, or adept with women. The encounter turned out to be semi-public (someone else walked in, and then she wrote about it) and somewhat disappointing. The guy wanted a return engagement and was denied even a second go-round. And Ms. Dunham later relived the encounter in a semi-fictitious version (on film). 
 
 But despite the less than cool guy involved (“Later that year, Audrey saw him in the student post office picking up a package with a pair of used Merrills to replace his really used Tevas, and we laughed about it like mean girls.”), the story otherwise eerily parallels Dunham’s political history. 
 
 As reported in Slate: 
 
 Dunham was born on May 13, 1986 . That means she was 18 and change when John Kerry faced off against George W. Bush in November 2004. If voting is so important, why didn’t she vote when she first had the chance?...According to New York City’s voter file, a Lena Dunham registered in Manhattan voted in the 2008 general election but not the 2004 general election or any local elections between the two..” 
 
 So, despite Ms. Dunham’s assertion that “it’s super uncool to be out and about and someone says, “Did you vote,” and “No, I didn’t vote, I wasn’t ready,” as in her real life, Ms. Dunham waited what is, in these times, considered to be an indecent interval before popping her electoral cherry. 
 
 Further, in a Gatemouth exclusive , I can now report that according to New York City’s voter file, a Lena Dunham registered to vote in Brooklyn did not vote in the 2012 general election or in any local elections since she moved from her prior address in Tribeca. 
 
 In other words, Ms. Dunham lost her electoral cherry in an encounter that turned out to be semi-public (she informed the entire American public of its occurrence) and was apparently somewhat disappointed by it, in that the guy wanted a return engagement and was denied even a second go-round (she even blue-balled him, despite proclaiming on her show that she didn’t believe in that). Finally, Ms. Dunham later relived the encounter in a semi-fictitious version (on a videotape posted on YouTube). 
 
 On her sitcom, “Girls” Ms. Dunham’s character Hannah Horvath declares “ I think I may be the voice of my generation ” 
 
 I think Ms. Dunham herself may have earned that title. 
 
 In 2008, Ms. Dunham’s generation, hyped with the thrill of the chase (not the thrill of the chaste), eagerly lost its political virginity to Barack Obama. 
 
 But faced with the reality that what a political relationship actually entailed often lacked the excitement of the fantasy that Hannah masturbated to eight times a day , in 2010, young people stayed away from the polls in droves , delivering Congress and plenty of state legislatures and governorships to the GOP in a reapportionment year. 
 
 The result, even after young voters returned to Obama for a second try in the political sack, was a guarantee that the administration would blow its wad pretty quickly and then pretty much go limp thereafter. 
 
 Ms. Dunham apparently found even this disappointing suitor a better bet than “legitimate rape” (though, if one watches “Girls,” “legitimate rape fantasy” is apparently a different matter), but being a generational leader, Ms. Dunham came out ahead of the 2014 trajectory and beat her fellow millennialcrats to the punch by failing to vote in 2012. 
 
 Funny thing is that the right is obsessed by Dunham, to the point of hateful ugliness (“ This is the first show in the history of cable television where male viewers actively root for the heroine to keep her clothes on.”). 
 
 Conservatives almost unanimously consider Ms. Dunham a bad role model for young people. 
 
 Talk about clueless. 
 
 When it comes to voting behavior, Ms. Dunham is almost exactly the role model the right wing should want her liberal generation to follow. 
 
 Talk big about your social concerns and stay away from the ballot box. ||||| Share On more Share On more 
 
 Lena Dunham didn't vote in the 2012 elections despite making a widely-discussed video for the Obama campaign, according to New York politics blog Room 8. 
 
 "I can now report that according to New York City's voter file, a Lena Dunham registered in Brooklyn did not vote in the 2012 general election or in any local elections since she moved from her prior address in Tribeca," writes blogger Gatemouth. 
 
 Dunham did vote in 2008, but not in 2004. 
 
 A representative for Dunham didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Update 2/7: Dunham addressed the claims on Thursday, saying on Twitter that voted by affidavit at a different polling place in New York: ||||| Late Wednesday night, Room Eight broke the major story that millionaire author and recap muse Lena Dunham did not vote in the last election, despite starring in that controversial pro-Obama get-out-and-vote ad last fall. So, huge scandal, right? Maybe. From Room Eight, who really dug deep for this one: 
 
 ...I can now report that according to New York City's voter file, a Lena Dunham registered in registered in Brooklyn did not vote in the 2012 general election or in any local elections since she moved from her prior address in Tribeca. 
 
 Buzzfeed notes Dunham voted in 2008, but not in 2004. However, a commenter on Buzzfeed's report said he thought Dunham was in India during the election. So the night team here at Gawker did some investigating of our own. The results are shocking. 
 
 Big time RT @juliaberndt I know you're out and about in India. But, you did vote, right? — Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 5, 2012 
 
 Controversy averted? Or is this just the beginning... 
 
 [via Buzzfeed//Image via AP]
– Potential celebrity scandal alert: Room Eight, a New York politics blog, says Lena Dunham did not vote in 2012. The Girls creator, of course, made a controversial ad last year urging people to vote for Obama. But, while a Lena Dunham is registered to vote in Brooklyn, she didn't actually vote there in last year's presidential election, according to Room Eight. What's more, she was eligible to vote in 2004 and didn't, Slate revealed last year. (Dunham basically admitted this in the aforementioned ad, in which she reveals that her "first time" was with Obama.) And both Slate's and Room Eight's investigations found that Dunham has also failed to vote in any local elections, both when she was registered in Manhattan and now that she's registered in Brooklyn. But, one BuzzFeed commenter thinks it's possible Dunham voted in 2012 by absentee ballot: She was in India at the time, and a Gawker writer asked her two days before the election whether she had voted. Dunham's reply: "Big time."