Citizens address election integrity

HARTINGTON – More than 30 people concerned about election integrity attended the July 11 Cedar County Board of Commissioners’ meeting.

Nick Folkers, Hartington, spoke on behalf of the group and requested county commissioners hold a public hearing on election integrity, including a presentation by the Nebraska Voter Accuracy Project.

Folkers’ claims came despite a recent presentation from Secretary of State Bob Evnen, in which Evnen detailed how votes are tallied in Nebraska. In a December interview with NTV News of Lincoln, Evnen said Nebraska’s elections are secure and a recent audit proves just that.

“A manual count of 48,292 ballots from 132 voting precincts across all 93 Nebraska counties verifies that the equipment utilized to count ballots is secure and accurate,” Evnen said. “Following each statewide election since 2008, a manual audit has been conducted for two to three percent of precincts across the state. This year’s audit was expanded to 10 percent.”

Evnen said Nebraska continues to use paper ballots, which allows for these post-election audits. The manual audit verifies that the equipment properly functioned on Election Day and was not tampered with at any point following pre-election testing.

Evnen said, of the more than 48,000 ballots that were hand-counted in the audit, there were 11 discrepancies between the machine count and the hand count. That’s an error rate of less than 1 percent.

For example, the secretary said five of the apparent differences were the result of voters having placed light marks on the ballots. It’s questionable whether these were discrepancies at all since the voter’s intent was unclear, according to Evnen.

Folkers – who has appeared in front of the board before about election integrity – said a Cedar County public hearing should be scheduled in the evening so people who work during the day may attend.

“I have concerns about election integrity nationwide, statewide, and I have concerns that no one is stepping up to the plate to do anything about it,” Folkers said.

County Clerk Dave Dowling, who is also the county’s election commissioner, said the board has not scheduled a public hearing on election integrity – and does not plan to.

“It’s their decision, but they do represent us,” Folkers said of the county commissioners.

Folkers brought up ballot harvesting, which involves laws in some states that permit third parties to collect absentee ballots from voters’ homes and deliver them to a polling place or an election office.

“Nothing is being done about ballot harvesting either,” Folkers said. “I am of the opinion that a return to hand-counted ballots at the precinct level would not make ballot harvesting illegal. It would make it impossible.”

Dowling explained the county commissioners cannot force his office to return to the manual counting of ballots.

“They don’t have the authority,” Dowling said. “And I can’t do it because the state (Secretary of State’s Office) won’t let me do it.”

Dowling, who is in his 37th year as the county clerk, recalled the county has not hand-counted ballots for more than three decades and uses ballotscanning machines to count them.

“They’re 99.9 percent accurate,” Dowling said of the machines. “We do audits on them. We check them.”