Election bills see contentious debate in committee hearing
LINCOLN, Neb. — Voting is the cornerstone of any good democracy and the legislature’s government committee looked at a number of bills Wednesday, covering everything from when you can vote to who can turn in your ballot.
A couple of the bills that made their way to the government committee were introduced at the request of Nebraska’s Secretary of State Bob Evnen.
The big one was LB843, an omnibus bill introduced by Senator Tom Brewer that includes a multitude of changes, with the biggest change focused on out-of-state 3rd party organizations sending election waivers to Nebraska voters.
In recent elections, election commissioners have noticed a surge of these 3rd party waivers that are often designed to appear as though it came from the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office. Something that caused plenty of confusion and even led to a bomb threat in the 2020 elections.
“Unfortunately one recipient became so agitated about the constant identical mailer that he used the postage paid response to send an expletive laced message, which he attached to a skateboard sized box with foam bumpers on it. That box was hand delivered to me from the US postal carrier and it was obviously suspicious so our law enforcement was contacted and it resulted in our sheriff evacuating our county administration building,” said Hall County Election Commissioner Tracey Overstreet.
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Following LB843 was LB858, introduced by Senator Robert Clements. The bill would prohibit election officials and workers from accepting grants or donations from private entities for any purpose regarding elections.
Clements said he is concerned with the influence of outside money on Nebraska elections, in particular a grant of over $400,000 that Lancaster County accepted from the left-leaning election reform group Center for Tech and Civic Life with most of that funding originating from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and on Wednesday several testifiers shared Clements concerns.
“This is pertinent, the oligarchs such as George Soros is influencing election officials across the country as well as other people and other things,” said one testifier at Wednesdays hearing.
The other bill making waves in the committee was LB785 introduced by Senator Mike Groene. The bill would cut the amount of time folks have to vote early by mail to 22 days, down from the current 35 day window, and would allow for voters to appoint an “agent” to submit their ballot on their behalf.
Groene used unfounded claims of election fraud in 2020 as most of the justification for his bill but opponents argued cutting the voting period could have a drastic effect on disabled voters who already face difficulties voting in person.
“Pretty much every location in the state has some sort of accessibility issue. We are working on that, I know the committee has done great work on that but we are still a long way from where we need to be,” said Edison Mcdonald with ARC of Nebraska.
