A notary from York faces charges following an investigation into false signatures on petitions aiming to legalize medical marijuana in Nebraska.
Hall County Attorney Marty Klein and Attorney General Mike Hilgers announced this week they filed 24 charges of official misconduct against Jacy Todd, a notary public from York.
The filing was part of an ongoing investigation into fraudulent signatures found on petition pages submitted in support of the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Regulation and Medical Cannabis Patient Protection initiatives.
Hilgers and Klein previously announced a felony charge for false swearing against a petition circulator, Michael Egbert of Grand Island.
A press release from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office stated investigators uncovered evidence that Todd notarized petition pages outside of the presence of petition circulators, including Egbert, who dropped off pages containing signatures at Todd’s Grand Island business, Herban Pulse.
Arrest documents state that when interviewed, Todd admitted to notarizing legalization and regulation petitions, and that he primarily became a notary to help with notarizing petitions.
In doing so, the press release stated Todd knowingly violated Nebraska law governing the behavior of a notary public.
“Hall County Election Commissioner Tracy Overstreet and the people with whom she works take election integrity very seriously,” Klein said in the press release. “Their diligence and thoroughness in the petition signature verification and the work of the investigation team from the Hall County Sheriff’s Office led to these charges. Voters in Hall County should be confident in signing petitions and casting their ballots in Hall County.”
Egbert is charged with falsely swearing to a circulator’s affidavit on a petition. The penalty ranges from probation to a maximum of two years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.
Egbert’s suspected fraud on the legalization initiative included 104 signatures collected by Egbert from Feb. 18 to June 30.
Of those, 68 signatures had the wrong date of birth, eight were deceased individuals and six names were misspelled.
The suspected raid on the regulation petition included 98 signatures collected by Egbert, which included 68 with the wrong date of birth, eight from deceased individuals and six with misspelled names.
When interviewed in September with his attorney, court documents state Egbert told authorities he was averaging three signatures per hour and used a telephone book to write in additional names and addresses with made-up date of births. He also told authorities he had left the petition sitting unattended while he went to breaks, and someone could have signed it in his absence.
“Election integrity is the bedrock of our democratic republic, and the public expects that those seeking to put an issue on the ballot follow the law,” Hilgers said in the press release. “And this is particularly true where notaries are involved in the election process. Notaries are officers of the public and held to a higher standard of trust and honesty. Here, our investigation uncovered a significant abuse of the notary process and the false representations that petitions were properly notarized when, in fact, they were not.”
Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana issued a statement following the announcement of the charges, saying the group is confident it satisfied all constitutional and statutory requirements for placement on the ballot.
The investigation is ongoing and is not limited to Hall County.