Lancaster County, Nebraska officials respond to election fraud conspiracies

“The reason I asked them to be present is I’ve gotten calls from constituents wondering why we were committing voter fraud and why we were complicit,” said County Board Chairwoman Christa Yoakum.

The board’s policy, she said, is not to comment or answer questions during the public comment period, but after weeks of people making accusations of election fraud — many of the same arguments made nationally — she wanted to respond.

“This was our way of responding to some of the concerns they wanted us to look into and to ask questions.”

During the public comment period for several weeks, people — many with the Nebraska Voter Accuracy Project — have testified about various election fraud conspiracies, everything from ballot stuffing to problems with voting machines.

Wayne Bena, deputy secretary of state for elections — who appeared with Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen — told the board he’s concerned that foreign actors have tried to sow doubt and spread misinformation.

“What we’ve seen over the course of the last four years is that use of social media and misinformation and information not properly vetted and data not properly vetted have poisoned the well as to the integrity of our elections,” he said.

Measures the state has taken to ensure election results are accurate include expanding the manual audit of results from 2%-3% of precincts to 10% statewide, and making sure every county had at least one hand-counted audit, he said.

Of the 48,292 ballots hand-counted, just 11 ballots had discrepancies, he said.

Before each election, he said, every county does three test runs of voting machines, holds two mock elections and runs one statewide test.

None of the machines are connected to the internet and results are transferred via a military-encrypted USB drive to another computer to compile the results, which are double-checked with the results from the voter machines before being made public, he said.

Bena also took issue with reports of 4,500 additional votes being cast in the 2020 election than voter history records showed, saying the voter history reports used for the comparison were too far removed from the election and — because they change regularly as people die, move or are convicted of felonies — it wasn’t a valid comparison.

Bena said it’s unfortunate that much of the data provided to people “doesn’t pass the sixth grade math teacher test” — a comment that prompted an angry response from Commissioner Matt Schulte, who accused him of being rude to people in the audience.

“You said they can’t pass a sixth grade math test,” he said.

Bena said he wasn’t referring to those in the audience, but to those who provided them information.

“I’m sorry if the analogy seemed inappropriate,” Benas said. “I’ve asked for algorithms for two years and haven’t gotten it. What you’ve been provided is the answer, not the math.”

Commissioner Roma Amundson asked about reports of people getting multiple ballots sent to their homes, and both Wiltgen and Bena said that would be impossible and it appears ballot applications sent by third-party organizations trying to encourage people to request mail-in ballots have been mistaken for ballots.

Also, Bena said, no election commissioner has gotten ballots back from voters saying they’d gotten more than one.

Schulte asked Wiltgen if he’d consider doing an audit of city elections. Wiltgen said he’s preparing for the 2024 presidential election but would consider doing an audit in 2025, though he would have to submit a plan to the state for approval.

Several commissioners commended the election officials for the work they’ve done and said they’re satisfied elections are secure.

“We’ve heard a litany of complaints,” Commissioner Rick Vest said. “Let’s be clear. Everyone up here wants free and fair elections. There’s nobody up here that wants any fraud taking place. … The testimony I heard this morning is very factual and very driven by objective standards and very comforting to me.”