(Picture credit Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office)
Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office announced it is now investigating all of Nebraska’s ballot initiatives for potential fraud. Lancaster County Chief Deputy Sheriff Ben Houchin held a press conference on Wednesday where he announced the expanded investigation.
“Our investigation has extended to the statewide ballot initiatives,” Houchin said, saying that included not only the current Lindstrom for Governor petition and online sports betting investigations, but also the Fairness for Girls and the Respect Nebraska Voters petition campaigns.
Houchin said there are “thousands and thousands” of fraudulent signatures across each of the petition efforts. “We don’t have a count yet; it’s that many,” he added.
The expanded investigation means that all four ballot initiatives submitted to the Secretary of State, Bob Evnen, are now under investigation for fraud. Evnen has yet to announce that any of the initiatives have enough verified signatures to make the November ballot.
Houchin said his office has also arrested Michael Smith, 28, of St. Louis, Missouri, as part of its investigation into petition fraud. He added that the five individuals, who were arrested previously, have waived extradition and are on their way back to Nebraska to face felony charges.
The sheriff’s office said Smith’s role was similar to the other individuals charged with signature fraud. He said authorities are actively looking to arrest a seventh individual.
“We continue our investigation into these, and again this is going to take us awhile to complete,” Houchin said.
He added that law enforcement has been working with the various petitioning groups involved in the department’s investigations and that they have been “very” helpful in “giving us everything that we want.”
Fraud Case Widening
Houchin’s announcement comes as more election commissioners have flagged fraud for investigators. Douglas County Election Commissioner Danielle Jensen told The Plains Sentinel on Saturday that her office had found fraud on both of the ballot initiatives submitted by the online sports gambling group Tax Relief Nebraska.
Buffalo and Hall County election commissioners told the Lincoln Journal Star they found fraud on both the sports gambling initiatives and the Fairness for Girls initiative.
Respect Nebraska Voters declined to comment on the investigation into the initiative other than to confirm the effort had used the Texas-based group, Advanced Micro Targeting, to gather signatures. Tax Relief Nebraska has not returned a request for comment — the effort paid both FieldWorks, a D.C.-based firm, and Neilan Strategy Group, a Nebraska-based consulting firm, to collect signatures.
On the Ballot, a Florida-based group, was used by the Lindstrom for Governor effort and Good Government Lincoln.
On Friday, Evnen announced that Brett Lindstrom had missed making the November ballot following a significant number of fraudulent signatures being discovered on his petition effort.
The initial investigation into fraudulent signatures began earlier this month when Good Government Lincoln had its charter amendments rejected after over 65% of the signatures were invalidated, many of which investigators say were fraudulent.
— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.
It appears criminals have found a profitable niche in traveling the country committing fraud against its citizens. It is a much more serious offense than it might appear to be on the surface. Getting issues or people on ballots that shouldn't be there could result in far reaching and undesired outcomes. Unless these ballot gathering individuals and organizations are dealt with harshly, nothing will change. It's going to take much more than a slap on the wrist and a $100 fine to stop it.
Yes, prosecute the criminals. Meanwhile, realize that (while MAYBE not intentional) anyone managing a campaign utilizing criminal petitioner gatherers can't be trusted in public office. Executives may need to delegate authority however they are directly responsible to know the quality of those to whom authority is delegated. We already have too much incompetence in public office.