Even if Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch had been in Washington to vote, it wouldn't have changed the outcome, but it raised a question: How often do members of Utah's federal delegation skip out on their primary duty of voting?

The answer: infrequently.

An analysis of the delegation's missed votes for the past three congressional sessions and the first three months of this year shows, in general, Utah's three House members and two senators make more than 90 percent of roll call votes, according to Washingtonpost.com's database of congressional votes.

In fact, three of the five members hit votes at a better clip than their counterparts from across the country.

The best Utahn at making votes: Rep. Jim Matheson. The worst: Rep. Chris Cannon.

Since Matheson's first day in Congress, he has, on average, missed less than 1 percent of votes, or 23 total out of 3,642 cast, the database shows.

Cannon - who missed many votes in late 2004 when his daughter was diagnosed with cancer and died shortly thereafter - tops the delegation in absences, missing on average about 9 percent of votes since 2001. House members on average from 2001 to March 31 of this year missed about 4.1 percent of votes.

Utah's other House member, Rob Bishop, skipped about 5.63 percent of votes since he became a congressman in 2003. The state's two senators both came in under the average of 3 percent for missed votes in that chamber since 2001. Hatch missed 2.26 percent, while Bennett missed 1.92 percent of votes.

Cannon spokesman Fred Piccolo says his boss "takes his duty to cast votes for his district very seriously."

But, he adds, "most of the votes he missed were noncontroversial measures like naming post offices or congratulating sports teams."

John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Washington-based Cato Institute, says many times the votes that members miss don't really matter to their constituents, though skipping has raised some eyebrows.

"I do recall that missing votes has become an issue from time to time in past elections," says Samples, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. "But I think it becomes an issue when there are other questions about the competence of the member and his service to a district or state."

Matheson, who missed only two votes during the 2003-04 session, says he puts an emphasis on ensuring his ballot is cast.

"There's a slippery slope at some point when you talk about missing votes," Matheson said. "For me it's important to make it to every vote."

For his part, Hatch says a member of Congress can't make every vote and sometimes there are valid reasons - the death of a staffer, a family engagement, even the news media holding up the member during a vote - ballots aren't cast.

And, he added, "sometimes you have to come home and do some stuff that is more important than some votes."

Bennett's spokeswoman Emily Christensen says every member recognizes the "great responsibility" to cast votes. "While emergencies, illness or other challenges can occasionally keep Sen. Bennett from votes, he does his best to fulfill this duty and believes his colleagues do, too," she said.

Bishop sometimes has to miss votes for legitimate reasons, including work in his home district, but the number of votes missed is still "pretty darn small" overall and some are not always important to make, says his chief of staff, Scott Parker.

"I'm sure the Grand Valley State University Lakers appreciated the congressional resolution honoring them for winning the 2006 NCAA Division II Football Championship, but I doubt they noticed whether Rob voted or not," Parker says, quickly adding, "which he did, by the way."

Former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican who represented upper New York state for 23 years, says a missed-vote count doesn't reveal anything about how good of a job a member is doing.

"I've had sessions, had 100 percent attendance," said Boehlert, now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Inter- national Center in Washington. "I've had sessions where I had 96 percent [attendance]. I worked harder at 96 percent than at 100 percent."

A missed vote could be for any reason, he argues, and says it's not the quantity of votes but the quality of them.

"Does that mean they're out playing golf or goofing off? No," he says. "It means they probably missed something of little or no consequence. . . . Their job is a helluva lot more important than just showing up for every vote."

tburr@sltrib.com