 { return (string)base["name"]; }
        }
    }

    class MyConfigurationSection : ConfigurationSection
    {
        [ConfigurationProperty("empty", DefaultValue = null)]
        public MyConfigurationElement Empty
        {
            get { return (MyConfigurationElement)base["empty"]; }
        }

        [ConfigurationProperty("missing", DefaultValue = null)]
        public MyConfigurationElement Missing
        {
            get { return (MyConfigurationElement)base["missing"]; }
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var configSection = (MyConfigurationSection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("mySection");

            Console.WriteLine("Empty.Name: " + (configSection.Empty.Name?? "<NULL>"));
            Console.WriteLine("Missing.Name: " + (configSection.Missing.Name?? "<NULL>"));

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

Test Configuration
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="mySection" type="MissingConfigElementTest.MyConfigurationSection, MissingConfigElementTest"/>
  </configSections>
  <mySection>
    <empty />
  </mySection>
</configuration>

Output
The output is
Empty.Name: 
Missing.Name:

The Problem
I can't find a way to differentiate between the empty, but present configuration element and the case where the entire configuration element has been left out.
I want to have this because if an element is present, I want to make sure that it passes certain validation logic, but it is also fine to just leave the element out entirely.

A: To add to this, the ElementInformation.IsPresent property can be used to determine whether the element exists within the original configuration.
var configSection = ( MyConfigurationSection ) ConfigurationManager.GetSection( "mySection" );

Console.WriteLine( "Empty.Name: " + ( configSection.Empty.ElementInformation.IsPresent? configSection.Empty.Name : "<NULL>" ) );
Console.WriteLine( "Missing.Name: " + ( configSection.Missing.ElementInformation.IsPresent? configSection.Missing.Name : "<NULL>" ) );

Console.ReadLine( );

This will output
Empty.Name:
Missing.Name: <NULL>


A: You can search for the section:
var sections = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None).Sections;
var exists = sections.Cast<ConfigurationSection>()
               .Any(x => x.SectionInformation.Type.StartsWith("MissingConfigElementTest.MyConfigurationSection"));

Lord Mayor, Councillor Kevin Savage sends the message to businesses in the borough to sign up to Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council’s Text2Business SMS service.
Businesses across the borough can now keep up to date on all the latest news with the touch of a button or swipe of a screen thanks to the introduction of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council’s Text2Business SMS service.
Businesses are invited to sign up for the new vital communication tool which will deliver short real time messages, digital updates and local alerts to help them keep up to date with what is happening in and around our urban and rural centres and across the borough.
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THE Conservative Party, which gathered in Manchester for its annual conference this week, is facing two struggles. The long-term one concerns its image. The immediate battle is to revive the economy.
That urgent task now looks even tougher. Just hours before David Cameron gave his big conference speech on October 5th, growth in the first half of 2011 was revised down by the Office for National Statistics; responding to the gloom, the Bank of England announced a fresh round of quantitative easing on October 6th.
The government was counting on a speedy recovery from recession to help it fulfil its main purpose, which is to eliminate the structural fiscal deficit by 2015. That prospect looks increasingly uncertain. The stubbornly poor economic numbers vindicate calls for a slower pace of austerity, says the Labour opposition, led by Ed Miliband. Some on the Tory right also want a change of approach, though they favour tax cuts over an easing of the spending squeeze.
As an effort to perk up the nation, Mr Cameron's speech went as far as bromides about British indefatigability can. Senior Tories worry that economic pessimism, of the kind that characterised the recent conference of the Liberal Democrats (their coalition partners), will sap confidence further. The prime minister had to balance honesty about the precarious economic situation with reassurance.
It was George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, who bore the burden of substantively rejecting the case for fiscal loosening. His speech on October 3rd painted this as a high-risk, low-reward strategy. Releasing “a few billion” pounds would be likelier to ruin Britain's hard-won credibility with global financial markets, he argued, than to provide a meaningful fillip for the economy. He cited the country's low rates of interest as the ultimate growth policy. Indeed, Tories insist that the biggest economic news of the week was the confirmation of Britain's triple-A bond status by Standard & Poor's on the day the chancellor spoke.
Mr Osborne has been in office for a year and a half. By a similar stage of Gordon Brown's time at the Treasury, he had earned the nickname the “iron chancellor”. His fiscal discipline turned out to be flexible but, for better or worse, Mr Osborne's seems adamantine. True, he announced some measures to boost growth: some cumbersome labour laws are to be cut away; “credit easing”, a so-far vague attempt to give business lending a nudge, is on the cards, too. But these, critics say, are piecemeal. Anything that would cost serious money, and disrupt his deficit-reduction plan, was ruled out. Tory tax-cutters left Manchester in glum mood.
For the time being, though, the pressure for change comes mainly from Labour. There is strikingly little doubt about the government's austerity programme among Lib Dems, even in private. Internal Tory dissent lacks a powerful voice. The public mood is also one of grudging assent, if not exactly fervent support. And while each morsel of dismal economic