Nebraska’s Problematic Elections

Bob Evnan is Bobbing

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Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnan continues to try to recover from the 2020 election and his dismal performance in the 2022 election, but he is trying.

Recently he spoke in Omaha and mentioned much of the voter ID issue. When the topic turned to non-citizens voting, he made an interesting claim. He stated once someone is registered to vote, they cannot be removed from the registrar because voting is a right. Well, I doubt this because it appears to violate the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Immigrant_Responsibility_Act_of_1996) but maybe he is right. His claim may be the result of current court rulings, but why can we remove someone from the registrar if they are already registered to vote in another state? If they declare they are not a US citizen, does this not mean they can vote in some other country? Last I checked, the United States does not accept dual citizenship, but merely tolerates it.

However, Mr. Evnan said the State could take action regarding the attestation, the mark on the registration asking for citizenship acknowledgment. But I suspect this is open to legal challenge as merely barring non-citizens from voting.  Yes, there are efforts to provide voting rights to non-citizens (https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States).

However, Nebraska still has a problem because voter registrations are used to solicit potential jurors. Non-citizens do not have the right to be on a jury. So if they are picked from the voter registration and yet show up to declare they cannot do jury duty as they are not a citizen, there should be fed back to the Secretary of State to either remove the registrant from the voter registration or at least ask for clarification of their claim of being a US Citizen on the voter registration form.  Yet there is no such process or requirement in the law.

When the time came for questions from the audience at the end of his speech, Mr. Evnan failed in expectations of addressing the problems inherent in the Nebraska election system. One person asked about security measures such as zero-trust strategies. This is where information requires verification procedures at every level, not just at entry. The question also applied to open-source requirements. Organizations such as Look Ahead America are opposed to black box technologies and want them to be open-sourced so the process being used can be checked and verified (https://lookaheadamerica.org/integrity/).  Mr. Evnan did not quite understand the question and stated this matter has not been taken under consideration, but he did state machines are routinely tested. Color me unimpressed.

Another person, a wife of a former state senator, expressed concern about retirement homes. She was going to help her parent vote in the election, but when she arrived, she learned the staff had already assisted all the residents with voting. This is classic granny-harvesting of votes by an institution and has been widely criticized for decades. Yet, Mr. Evnan’s less-than-stellar response was to merely state he is working on this matter.

Next came my question about the automatic mailing out of unrequested ballots. I understand some of the rural counties have such procedures for all elections. That is their choice, but keep in mind, they know what to expect in their mail as they are only subject to one procedure and one procedure only: to mail in their ballot.

This cannot be said of the residents of the Westside School District. Most residents of the district expect they have to request a mail-in ballot. but the school district throws a curve ball at unsuspecting registered voters in an elective election. The ballot is sent out automatically and is easily mistaken as junk-mail and the envelope is not marked as time-sensitive and is largely indistinguishable from the vast amount of junk mail. I can only wonder how many ballots actually ended up in the recycling bin.

You would think the school district would at least send out a preliminary postcard informing registered voters about automatic mail-in ballots in the same way they ict announce their caucuses. Yet, no such notice comes forward. The school district can operate freely from other local governments in regards to elections. This is merely a form of concealment and misdirection. The residents of Westside School District are subject to two very different election procedures: the standard election dates with polling booths, but also the random election and automated mail-in ballots of the Westside School District. This is unfair to the voters of this school district.