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Over the years, I’ve covered a few elections – probably more than I’d like to remember.
Back in the day, we didn’t get the wall-to-wall commercials slinging mud or the daily update on what the polls say.
But one thing hasn’t changed – elections are maybe the most observed, double checked and overseen functions of government.
Vote counting machines are double- and triple-checked. Each political party employs “poll watchers” to make sure there’s no hanky panky, and the boards that count and receive ballots consist of both political parties. There’s dozens of regulations to follow.
And, officials with each political party – as well as reporters – carefully watch the election results to see if they match past voting and polls. Actual fraud in voting is rare, but when it happens, it’s rooted out and prosecuted.
Despite all that, there’s a movement across the country, and in Nebraska, to distrust election results, vilify election workers, and scream “fraud.”
A former president – who lost the 2020 election and 60-some lawsuits contesting the results – has called voting “rigged.” That, of course, led to a violent attempt to stop the confirmation of the 2020 presidential election results, as well as harassment and even death threats against election officials across the country. Some had to hire security or move out of their homes.
(Could anything be more disgusting than seeing normal people who were doing their duty and following the law, being targeted for doing their jobs?)
There’s great fear now that we will see a repeat of Jan. 6.
During a recent meeting of election officials from Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota and Missouri, the host of the meeting, the head of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, opined that we’ve just seen “the tip of iceberg” when it comes to threats and violence against election officials and workers.
Let’s hope that’s not the case. Free and fair elections in the U.S. are what separates us from the banana republics and dictatorships of the world. Accepting the results of a presidential election with grace and dignity – something that clearly didn’t happen in 2020 – has been a tradition. It guarantees a peaceful transition from one leader to the next. The losing candidate moves on, congratulates the winner and people, government, can get back to work.
But that hasn’t exactly happened. Since the 2000 elections, a special task formed at the FBI has fielded more than 2,000 threats against election workers.
Nebraska isn’t immune. In September 2020, a suspicious package that looked like a bomb was mailed to the election office in Hall County; election offices have been bombarded with “cookie cutter” public records requests; in 2020, a Lincoln man was found guilty of posting threats against a Colorado election official.
I covered a state legislative hearing in 2022 when a group of people (associated with what they called an “accuracy” project) howled that the 2020 vote was crooked. How, they asked, could it be possible that Republican Don Bacon won re-election to the House of Representatives in the Omaha area when, at the same time, a Democrat, Joe Biden, also won?
What happened was that Bacon and Biden got the most votes. But the small mob wouldn’t listen to reason or state election officials’ assurances.
Secretary of State Bob Evnen took the unprecedented step of answering that group’s unfounded claims, one by one, in a PowerPoint on the state website. The presentative, “Fake vs. Fact,” debunks each of the allegations, including one claim made by the “My Pillow” owner Mike Lindell.
Lindell, on his website, stated that he had “irrefutable evidence,” that more than 100,000 votes were “stolen” from Donald Trump in Nebraska. Lindell even offered a $5 million reward if he was proven wrong – an amount he was ordered to pay after he was proven wrong in court. It’s a sad state of affairs when people can’t accept the truth and reason, but that’s where we are at with some people.
I’m reminded of something former Secretary of State Allen Beermann once told me about the recount required in the razor-thin primary election in 1990 for the Democratic nomination for governor. Ben Nelson was virtually tied with Bill Hoppner the morning after the primary.
An automatic recount was held, then a hand count, changing less than a handful of votes. Nelson was eventually declared the winner by 42 votes. The system worked. There were no cries of voter fraud.
Is our election process perfect? No. But we have a slew of safeguards, overseers and double-checks to ensure that it is accurate and makes sure whoever gets the most votes, wins.
Will Americans accept the results this year? Let’s hope so.
Paul Hammel has covered the Nebraska state government and the state for decades. He retired in April from the Nebraska Examiner. He was previously with the Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha Sun. A native of Ralston, Nebraska, he loves traveling and writing about the state.
“ Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said, ‘Never take candy from strangers.’ And then they dressed me up and said, ‘Go beg for it.
― Rita Rudener, American actress
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