Election Integrity in Nebraska - Part 3

Election Integrity - Part Three 

Joe Herring  

Vulnerabilities exist in any system, and generally, the more complex the system, the greater the potential for weaknesses. As technology evolves, specialized skills or training are necessary to identify these weaknesses, a circumstance that creates yet another vulnerability – which expert should you trust? 

Sometimes, equally credentialed experts disagree. The Nebraska Voter Accuracy Project (NVAP) boasts an impressive number of nationally-regarded leaders in their various fields of expertise. One of those men, Lorenzo “Larry” Ortega III, has an impressive resume.  He’s an Air Force Academy grad, with extensive post-graduate education and a track record of world-class accomplishments.

Ortega has become the most prominent member of NVAP taking on the duties of spokesperson and presenter in addition to contributing his expertise to digesting the reams of data involved in compiling their report. The concept of “excess votes” lies at the heart of the NVAP allegations. Retired Army captain Seth Keshel devised a model of data analysis based on "trend analysis of population growth, voter behavior and party registration."

The model uses previous voting trends, population growth and voter registration records to create a template against which divergences from the expected results are said to reveal evidence of fraud. The resulting “excess votes” (the number of votes counted that deviate from the expected number) appear to spring from an unknown denominator, one which Keshel has not yet made publicly available. 

Deviations from a predictive model do not necessarily prove interference in the count, only that the count doesn’t agree with the model. For this to be hard evidence of fraud, the predictive model would have to be flawless, or very nearly so, which is impossible given the variabilities involved.  

People vote or don’t vote for countless reasons. They vote for candidates from parties other than their own with regularity.  They even choose whether to participate at all for reasons that cannot be reduced to a formulaic quantity, being as varied as the circumstances in which the election is held, be that weather, enthusiasm (or lack of) for specific candidates, or any other number of reasons limited only by the human imagination. 

A deviation from expected results is not evidence of fraud, but rather a reason to look more closely, something the Secretary of State’s office has been doing. 

The conduct of a modern election is far from a straightforward endeavor. A forest of federal, state and local laws apply to nearly every element, with further complexity arising from the management of technology. Navigating these circumstances is difficult even for those quite familiar with the process, and nearly impossible for the uninitiated. 

A good example of this may be seen in the NVAP concerns regarding the number of ballots ordered by Lancaster county.  According to NVAP, “ES&S invoices charged Lancaster county for 246,929 ballots. Lancaster County Election Commissioner Shively’s Official Final Results says 158,801 ballots were cast. Why were 88,128 –55% – extra ballots ordered?  (emphasis in the original)

Nebraska counties often employ “ballot on demand” printing to provide flexibility to meet increased turnout, however ballots must be printed on very specific, approved paper.  The additional ballots ordered were not printed ballots, but rather ballot blanks to be printed as needed. 

A similar instance of misunderstanding is seen in the NVAP claim that “County Election Officials have written us saying they don’t have or keep the election ballot images from 2020, THIS IS NOT in accordance with Nebraska Election Law.  WE GUESS ES&S has the records. (emphasis in the original) 

ES&S doesn’t have the records because in Nebraska we don’t keep ballot images at all, but rather the actual physical ballots which are then stored at the individual county election commissions, or offices of the county clerk.  When ballots are machine tabulated, they are also sorted by that machine into stacks differentiating their status.  This is where ballots with unreadable or inconclusive markings are separated for further examination.   

Retaining the actual ballot is essential to later verification or audit. Some states retain the ballot images because their systems create the image prior to counting the votes, making the ballot image the “countable” ballot.  Nebraska, recognizing the inherent vulnerability in such a process, has wisely based their count on the actual ballot only, with imaging used only as a sorting mechanism to determine whether a ballot requires “eyes-on” handling. 

The 2020 election saw a number of firsts.  From private funding given to government election offices, to a coordinated strategy by left-leaning partisans of threatening or filing lawsuits to force last-minute changes to long-established election law, a taint of corruption clearly attaches to the contest. 

Some states are conducting credible investigations into the allegations, and some are ignoring the anomalies altogether, with a pronounced “red/blue” flavor to each. Nebraska officials have not been idle in response to the questions raised by the Nebraska Voter Accuracy Project and others.  In Secretary Evnen’s words, he has been studiously “running to ground,” each allegation made and fully recognizes the existence of vulnerabilities in our state, many of which are the focus of legislation he’s personally raised with legislators. 

Four bills introduced to the Unicameral this session, if passed, would go a long way toward ameliorating if not eliminating many of the vulnerabilities NVAP has noted. LB785, which would limit the number of days for early voting, but more importantly, ban the practice of ballot harvesting. LB858 would prohibit groups or individuals from inserting private funds into the conduct of public elections, (Zuckerbucks), while LB1263 would ensure the security and use of ballot dropboxes.  

LB76, would award Nebraska’s electors to the vote total winner statewide, instead of by Congressional district as is done now.  A “Winner-take-all” provision would force fraudsters to focus their efforts on the entire state (a much more difficult task) instead of only the 2nd Congressional District in hopes of snatching an electoral vote.   

NVAP has called for the election to be “Audited and Obviated, or simply Obviated.” They want a full forensic audit similar to that done in Arizona’s Maricopa county.  Failing the decertification of our election, they plan to put up a referendum that “will do it for the next election (decertify) and the 2020 election simultaneously – this would boot all of our Nebraska politicians – executive and legislative – OUT until after a redone election with manual count ballots.” 

The ultimate goal of NVAP is the removal of all machines from our elections and a return to “manual count ballots forever in Nebraska.”  

There is a nostalgic appeal to their solution, but it fails to consider the lessons of the machine politics of the past. Manual counts are inherently vulnerable to many forms of manipulation. Intimidating or bribing poll workers and election judges was a hallmark of political machine corruption.  Political “bosses” would stack the canvassing board with allies, who would then recruit canvassers and other election workers who could be relied on to facilitate fraud, or at least look the other way.  

Omaha itself has a dark and storied history of this during the days of “Boss” Tom Dennison, in the first third of the 20th century. Dennison was a crime boss first and foremost, and involved himself with politics as means of protecting his illicit empire. Connected to syndicates in both Chicago and Kansas City, Dennison controlled Nebraska politics for nearly three decades by manipulating manual count vote processes. 

He’s famous for saying

“There are so many laws that people are either law breakers or hypocrites. For my part, I hate a damn hypocrite.” 

The bulk of NVAP allegations rest on an assumption of corruption within ES&S, and among elements of the Election Assistance Commission and the election division of the Department of Homeland Security. Claims of algorithmic interference in Nebraska’s election appear to presuppose the existence of access gateways of which ES&S would certainly be aware. 

The first assertion that alerted this reporter to the issues raised by NVAP was their claim that voter turnout by age group was essentially identical (within one or two points) across all 93 of Nebraska’s counties. This would mean the same percentage of 20 year olds that voted in Douglas county would be mirrored in Deuel county, or Holt, or Cherry counties.  This was said to apply to all age cohorts across all counties. 

Clearly, such an anomaly would be impossible without a manipulation of the vote counts, evidencing significant, ubiquitous fraud. 

However, the Secretary of State examined this claim and provided NSN with a graphic representation of turnout for three selected age samples across all counties. The graph illustrates the turnout percentage for 22 year olds, 44 year olds and 66 year olds.  As the graphic clearly shows, the claimed mirroring of turnout percentages among all counties simply isn’t there.  

Mistrust of government is often warranted, and wise government officials recognize the behavior of their predecessors (and contemporaries) frequently merits that doubt. In this instance, that mistrust appears to have led two groups who should be allies (NVAP and the office of the SoS) to instead adopt an adversarial approach. The resulting conflicts have degraded the discourse and, if not reconciled, will certainly end with conservative Nebraskan’s staying home from the polls in droves, which is presumably the exact opposite of NVAP intent. 

This issue is not likely to wane in importance any time soon.