(Picture credit Matt Johnson)
Independent U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn made it a goal this cycle to hit all 93 counties in Nebraska in his campaign against incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. On Thursday, his campaign meant to check off three more rural counties, bringing him within 30 counties of his 93-county goal.
Osborn was scheduled to hold meet-and-greets at the Grant and Arthur county courthouses as well as the Mullen County Clerk’s Office. The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent all three county clerks notices that county officials risked “a Class I misdemeanor” for allowing the events to take place on county property in violation of Nebraska’s Election Act.
Nebraska’s election law bans “electioneering” at “any polling place or any building designated for voters to cast ballots by the election commissioner or county clerk pursuant to the Election Act while the polling place or building is set up for voters to cast ballots.”
“Osborn’s planned campaign event… plainly constitutes ‘electioneering,’ which means the event is prohibited by Nebraska law,” Andrew Pardue, the Deputy General Counsel for the NRSC, said in letters to the three counties. “This letter constitutes notice of an imminent violation of the Election Act occurring in a public building over which you exercise control. We respectfully request that you take immediate action to prevent this campaign event from taking place on the premises.”
Early voting started in Nebraska last Monday. Osborn’s campaign told The Plains Sentinel that they moved the events out of “an abundance of caution.”
“The campaign had been given the okay from the county to hold events there. But out of an abundance of caution around electioneering laws, the campaign decided to move from these locations,” said Osborn Campaign Manager Camilo Vilaseca.
Becky Swanson, the Arthur County Clerk, told The Plains Sentinel the county officials had not even considered the possibility it was against the law to hold a campaign event at the courthouse.
Swanson said the county courthouse is used for in-person early voting, but the county only has about 15 early voters a cycle.
“I got the email and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I hadn’t thought about that,’” she said. “We don’t think about those things in these small communities. When you have 400 people in the community, everybody knows everybody and we all just get along and we don’t think about these political things that you are supposed to be aware of.”
Swanson said she was glad someone had alerted her office so that they could follow the law.
Christee Haney, the Grant County Clerk, declined to comment except to say the Osborn campaign had moved its event from the courthouse. The Plains Sentinel left a message for the Hooker County Clerk.
Osborn has 15 events scheduled through the end of the week as he looks to finish off his 93-county tour with 19 days until the general election.
— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.