No evidence of voter fraud in Sarpy, outside investigation finds

PAPILLION, Nebraska — An outside investigation of populist-fed fears about voting problems, funded by Sarpy County taxpayers, found no evidence of voter fraud and only a handful of mistakes by poll workers, none of which changed an election outcome. 

The investigation, funded by Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov with $88,000 from his budget, explored the allegations from 52 affidavits gathered or shared by right-wing activists who said they got them going door-to-door to verify voter addresses.

The 32-page report, issued Friday after a year of work, said many of the 57 total complaints Sarpy County received about the 2020 general election and the 2022 primary election raised concerns about voting in other states and jurisdictions beyond the investigator’s scope. Stories seen on cable news or shared online fueled some complaints.

Handful of problems

The report identified a handful of local problems, including one poll worker who thanked a voter for showing ID before Nebraska required voters to show one, which election experts said could have spooked someone else in line without an ID from voting.

Another poll worker was reported for taking photos of the inside of a precinct to promote voting on social media, which made a fellow worker nervous that the images might have captured a vote on a secret ballot. State law allows selfies in polling places.

One voter reported being given the wrong ballot for the wrong congressional race in Sarpy County, but the person had already turned in their ballot, so it was too late to vote again. It happened in the first election after new congressional maps.

And two people who had moved outside Sarpy County, but had not yet registered to vote at their new addresses, were found to have voted at the Sarpy precincts where they previously lived. They should not have been allowed to vote, Investigator Bill Black said.

“Both only voted one time and voted in Sarpy County improperly due to human error,” he said.

The report said each of those issues could be fixed with better training of poll workers. But 54 interviews and evidence “could not substantiate the claims of fraud put forth with the information available,” Black wrote.

Questions persist

During a news conference about the report, one voting accuracy activist questioned Polikov and Black, a former investigator with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and Attorney General, about the accuracy of local voting rolls and voting machines.

At one point, the Nebraska Voter Accuracy Project activist expressed skepticism of Black’s explanation that he had started the investigation questioning the security of Nebraska elections and ended it with greater confidence about the voting system.

She questioned letting Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s office decide which precincts get randomly audited to check voting machine counts. County election officials hand-count at least one precinct in each county to verify machine counts. The state had Sarpy check two and found no problems.

Evnen on Friday applauded the Sarpy report describing it as “thorough and complete.”

“I appreciate the detailed work done by the Sarpy County Attorney’s Office and the Sarpy County Election staff to address potential election concerns,” he said. “I take election security very seriously. We will review and consider the suggestions found in the report.”

Voter Accuracy Project leaders have described their group as nonpartisan. But they have promoted their work with GOP populist groups, including the Nebraska Freedom Coalition and Nebraskans Against Government Overreach, and at county GOP meetings.

Fight behind the scenes

Sarpy County Republicans, like their counterparts statewide and nationally, are in the thralls of a fight over the direction of the GOP. Many are deciding whether to align with the party’s former values or former President Donald Trump.

It fueled changes in party leadership of the Nebraska Republican Party in 2022 from a team loyal to then-Gov. Pete Ricketts to one demanding more loyalty to Trump. It’s also part of what’s behind this year’s fight over Sarpy County GOP leadership. Populists have argued the election for county chair was “rigged.” Defenders of the chair have said it was a legitimate election.

Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has pressured state and local election officials nationally by raising concerns about voting machines after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden. Trump lost Nebraska’s 2nd District to Biden that year, winning in Sarpy but losing in neighboring Douglas County.

Trump faces federal charges stemming from allegedly mishandling classified documents and state charges in New York for alleged hush money payments to a porn star. He is facing primary challenges from several GOP candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Battleground district

Polikov — like many Republican officials who have been pressed since November 2020 to investigate election fraud claims in battleground states and districts — has had to walk a political tightrope.

Nebraska’s perennially purple 2nd Congressional District has flipped back and forth in recent presidential elections, going for President Barack Obama in 2008, for Mitt Romney in 2012, for Donald Trump in 2016 and for Biden in 2020.

Polikov acknowledged having had his own questions about the potential vulnerabilities of voting machines to hackers, despite Sarpy’s machines not being connected to the Internet. He also credited state and local election officials for their work to run elections and help with the probe.

Recommended changes

After a six-month investigation and six more months to prepare the report, Polikov agreed with the report’s finding that there was no crime to prosecute, only some recommendations for election officials and lawmakers.

Among them: The report calls for the Legislature to consider shortening how many years of information about people’s voting attendance should be made public. It also recommended tweaks to how long it takes to remove someone from the voter rolls.

Some of those tweaks might have to occur at the federal level, because many of the processes for removing someone from the voter rolls are governed by federal law and years of election-related case law, voting rights experts explained.

Polikov defended spending tax dollars on the investigation and said it would have cost as much to use a sheriff’s investigator, who would have had less time to devote to it. He said Black found what voters should want to hear about local elections.

That they are “free and fair.”

“The conclusion of this investigation was, that … it didn’t provide any fruit or thoughts of any misdeeds, wrongdoing or voter fraud,” Polikov said. “That’s the question we were looking for, and the answer is that none was discovered.”

Trump is set to visit nearby Council Bluffs on July 7.