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Lincoln, NE (Journal Star) — Nearly 3 out of every 4 registered voters in Nebraska cast a ballot for the general election, either by mail or in person, helping the state break its record for total votes cast.
More than 936,100 votes were counted in Tuesday’s election, exceeding the previous record high set four years ago by about 68,000 votes, Secretary of State Bob Evnen said at a news conference Wednesday at the state Capitol.
That total is expected to keep increasing, as election officials expect to add more than 20,000 early ballots dropped off at polling places Tuesday, as well as thousands of provisional ballots completed by voters.
“Our representative democracy cannot survive and thrive without the active, informed participation of voters,” Evnen said. “Nebraskans can be proud of their participation in the elections of 2020.”
By all accounts, and in contrast to some other states, Evnen said Nebraska conducted a smooth general election.
The state’s 933 polling places opened on time Tuesday morning, and while some encountered early lines, poll workers were able to minimize wait times for the roughly 500,000 voters who chose to vote in person.
Nebraska also allows its election officials to begin counting early ballots the day before the election, which prevented election night backlogs in tallying votes, Evnen said.
That gave election offices a head start on counting the 436,269 early ballots that were received by mail or dropped off prior to Tuesday — including 46,000 votes cast in precincts and counties that conduct their elections entirely by mail — as well as the 52,000 ballots filled out early in county clerk or election commission offices.
The various options for voting pushed turnout in more than one-third of Nebraska’s 93 counties above 80%, while turnout reached 88% in four counties.
There were no reports of fraud or voter intimidation at any polling place in Nebraska on Tuesday, Evnen said.
But the secretary of state, overseeing his first presidential election cycle, said he was concerned about the status of 25,000 early ballots requested but not returned by voters.
Evnen said in a typical election, about 15% of requested early ballots are not returned. While only about 8% of the requested mail-in ballots were not returned this year, Evnen said 25,000 “is not an insignificant number.”
“What happened to those ballots? We don’t know,” Evnen said, who added there is nothing pointing to any wrongdoing for why the ballots haven’t been returned.
With more voters expected to consider early voting in future elections, Evnen said the state needs to review its policies to ensure unreturned ballots do not become a problem.
“Once elections are corrupted, you can’t get them back,” he said. “The time to address these issues is before we have some sort of known fraud going on.”
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