Secretary of State Challenger Renews Election Integrity Debate Among GOP
by Matt Johnson
OMAHA – Nearly six years after the contentious aftermath of the 2020 election, skepticism over American voting systems, particularly those relying on proprietary vote-counting machinery, still represents a deep fault line within the Republican Party, including in Nebraska.
This skepticism was a prime motivating factor behind Scott Petersen’s campaign for Secretary of State, challenging incumbent Bob Evnen, who is currently seeking a third term.
In 2022, election integrity was a driving issue in the campaigns of two primary challengers for Bob Evnen—Robert Borer and Rex Schroder. Evnen won with a plurality of 43.9%, and Petersen said at a recent event he is confident the landscape has not changed significantly since then.
Petersen Pushes Election Concerns
On Tuesday, Petersen spoke to a crowd of around 100 people, both in-person and watching via livestream, at the DCRP headquarters in Omaha.
“People don’t trust the results of what we’re getting in elections, and we have to fix it,” Petersen said. “Whether we have great systems or not, if the people don’t trust it or aren’t confident in our elections, we have a problem that has to be addressed. And our current Secretary of State, quite honestly, doesn’t do much to help alleviate that concern.”
Appearing in-person at Monday’s event was Seth Keshel, a retired U.S. Army Captain in Military Intelligence. Known as “Captain K” online, Keshel gained prominence following the 2020 election when he claimed to identify significant anomalies and “excess votes” in data analysis of voter registration trends, turnout patterns, and vote totals. He concluded that Donald Trump would have won key battleground states if not for these issues.
Keshel said he was glad that election integrity is still a prominent issue among the grassroots GOP.
“There’s plenty of opportunity to avoid an election integrity event like the plague,” Keshel said. “Because who remembers 2021? ‘Election denialism—you’re a bad sport.’ Well now guess what? We won in 2024 and I’m still pissed off—I’m just as pissed off today, that we don’t have a fix—we can’t get the SAVE America Act across.”
Pushback from Don Bacon
Following Petersen's campaign launch this month, Congressman Don Bacon spoke out against his election claims on Twitter.
“Nebraska’s elections are safe and secure. Our Secretary of State is making wise decisions to make it even better,” Bacon said. “Anyone saying otherwise is selling snake oil and is a grifter.”
At a luncheon for the River City Republicans on Wednesday, Petersen responded to Bacon’s remarks.
“Congressman Bacon has never been one to be curious about election systems,” Petersen said. Then he addressed the room of around 30 guests. “How many people absolutely 100% trust our election systems? Anyone?”
Of around 30 guests in the room, only one person raised her hand—a CPA who conducts audits for the IRS. Petersen spoke specifically on transparency and the need to audit software for vote-counting machines.
“People are more aware today that there are problems with computers and software running our elections, especially controlled by private companies,” Petersen said. “You can’t audit it. It’s in the contract. You actually can’t audit the software, and that’s just not a great way to give confidence to the voters that you have after an election.”
Evnen Says Hand Counting Not Feasible
Among Petersen’s proposed reforms would be the elimination of mail-in ballots, outside of limited instances involving military service or rural areas where in-person polling is a significant distance from voters.
Petersen also emphasized a need to return to hand-counted paper ballots, a method he noted is used in France today. Petersen also cited the method proposed by Mark Cook, who travels the country in a branded RV as part of his “Hand Count Road Show,” as an example.
“We have to come up with a plan to absolutely get rid of the machines and get back to hand-counted paper ballots at the county level,” Petersen said at this event on Monday. “That is project number one when I get elected.”
On Monday, The Plains Sentinel asked Evnen about Peterson’s concerns. Evnen said that there was no justification for it.
“Every single machine in this state is tested three times before every election to check for its accuracy, and we have a post-election audit,” he said. “In 2024, after the general election, we hand-counted, across the state, 70,000 ballots out of every county. And of those 70,000 ballots, we found discrepancies in seven of them—that’s ten thousandths of one percent.”
Evnen stated that five of those discrepancies on those ballots resulted from ovals that were not properly filled in. The other two, his office believes, were misfiled.
There is a ballot initiative currently gathering signatures to require hand-counting across Nebraska, and Evnen says that if it passes, his office will implement it. He warns, however, that it will not be easy.
“It’s one thing if you’re counting one race, but there are times when you get handed two pages,” Evnen said. “Can you imagine hand-counting those? If we’re told to hand count, we will—we’ll have the results for you by Easter.”
— Matt Johnson is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel.
