The state’s top election official said his office fielded no reports of voter fraud as Nebraskans cast a record-breaking number of votes in the November 2020 election.
Secretary of State Bob Evnen said at the time that roughly 45% of the 936,000 votes were cast through the mail as Nebraskans took advantage of expanded opportunities during the coronavirus pandemic.
While conservative politicians in deep-red Nebraska have said publicly they believe the state’s elections are secure, several lawmakers have proposed measures to tighten elections in the Cornhusker State.
On Wednesday, Sen. Mike Groene said his bill (LB785) shortening the window Nebraskans can vote by mail in a general election from 35 days to 22 days — the same time allowed for special elections — would leave voters with plenty of time to cast their vote.
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The North Platte senator’s bill would also restrict voters from submitting more than two other voters’ ballots to their county election office. It’s currently legal for Nebraska voters to collect and deliver others' ballots — a practice often referred to as “ballot harvesting.â€
“I want to shorten the harvest season,†Groene told the committee, and shared a rumor that nonprofit advocacy groups often dropped off large numbers of ballots at election sites on the last day of early voting.
Lancaster County Election Commissioner Dave Shively, asked to respond to Groene’s comments by Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings, said he hadn’t noticed anything unusual in the state’s second-largest county.
Shively said the returns of early ballots often follow the same pattern, with an initial spike days after ballots go out, following by a trickle that increases again in the days leading up to Election Day.
“We always see a spike in the last couple days,†Shively said. “That’s pretty traditional.â€
Early voting in Lancaster County has increased in popularity in every presidential election since it became widely available in 1999, when Nebraska became a no-excuse state.
In the 2000 general election, there were about 5,000 request for absentee ballots; that number rose to 90,000 in 2020, driven in large part by the pandemic, Shively said.
Groene’s bill was backed by several individuals who said they believed mail-in ballots should be outlawed altogether, many repeating debunked claims the practice was full of fraud.
Other groups, including Civic Nebraska, the ARC of Nebraska, the AARP, ACLU of Nebraska and the League of Women Voters of Nebraska said tightening the window for early voting would disenfranchise individuals with disabilities, older voters and others who may not be able to go to the polls to vote.
Edison McDonald, executive director of the ARC of Nebraska, credited the state with making election sites more accessible, but said the mail-in voting option remains important to many Nebraskans with disabilities.
And Westin Miller, director of public policy at Civic Nebraska, said that while the state’s ballot return system could be improved, providing postage-paid envelopes and ballot tracking would create a more secure system.
Another bill (LB858) from Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood would prohibit state and county election officials from apply for or receiving grants or donations to help pay for election costs.
Clements said the Center for Technology and Civic Life, which received a $350 million donation from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, had funneled money into areas that tended to vote for Democratic candidates, saying those areas saw boosts to turnout in 2020.
Lancaster County was the only county in the state that received funding from the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, receiving $405,000 that was put toward purchasing non-central election equipment and paying for early voting costs, Shively said.
Deputy Secretary of State Wayne Bena, who testified in support of the bill, said the grant from the Center for Technology and Civic Life did not affect the election outcome in Lancaster County.
Clements said allowing private groups to fund elections was “bad optics at best and a dangerous trend at worst,†and said the state’s elections should be entirely taxpayer supported.
Danielle Conrad of ACLU of Nebraska said bills like LB858 “perpetuate the Big Lie†that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, and continue to cast doubt on the integrity of the election process and the people behind it, however.
The committee also deliberated a measure (LB843) introduced by Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon on behalf of Evnen that codifies several practices allowed during the pandemic.
The omnibus bill provides a mechanism to withdraw ballot initiatives, clarifies the process for voters who use a signature stamp or mark their ballots, and allow counties to recruit poll workers from a neighboring county with vote-by-mail to work on Election Day.
“We’ve found great success during the pandemic being able to use poll workers from counties that do their elections by mail to go into a neighboring county to help,†Bena told the committee.
It also allows for the National Guard to help out on Election Day if necessary, either by operating the polls or moving equipment to and from the precincts, at the Secretary of State’s discretion.
LB843 also prohibits electioneering within 200 feet of a drop box as well as public opinion polling or interviewing within 20 feet of a drop box.
Senators voiced concern about one provision of the bill that allows election commissioners or county clerks to remove voters from a list of early voting registration lists if they miss two consecutive elections.
Bena said maintaining those lists can be costly to some counties, but said the state elections officer was open to several amendments proposed by Civic Nebraska, including limiting striking voters from the rolls during an election year.
The committee did not take any action on Wednesday.