Nebraska secretary of state voter guide: Four candidates vying for seat this November

Four candidates have their eyes on the Secretary of State race that’s now wide open after incumbent Republican Bob Evnen lost the primary election. The general election winner will oversee an office that monitors several key operations in the state, including elections, business filings and public records management.

The office has seen only two different secretaries of state in the past two decades: Evnen, who has served since 2019, and John Gale, who served from 2000 to 2019. Both leaders differed in their approach to the office, especially when it came to fulfilling federal requests for voter information and international trade trips.

But the office could take a sharper turn yet from how it handles some of its biggest operations, depending on who wins election in November.

Primary underdog winner seeks election changes

After shaking up the Republican establishment with a surprising primary election win over Evnen, Scott Petersen is ready to make big changes to Nebraska elections.

His priorities include restricting mail-in ballots and establishing in-person voting for the 11 mail-in-only counties across Nebraska.

“It's prohibitive to vote if you live too far from a polling place. There's an easy way with technology to address that without making the whole county mail in, right?” Petersen asked.

His hope is to work with county clerks to establish a prohibitive distance to vote by mail. He said that when he’s traveled to those counties, he heard support for his idea.

The reason behind it? He believes mail-in ballots corrupt elections.

“We have a 35-day mail-in ballot period, and what that does, it actually encourages all that outside money and people that come into Nebraska, and they basically harvest votes or collect ballots for 35 days, and it really corrupts elections, especially in Omaha and Lincoln,” Petersen said.

Despite his claims, rural Nebraska county clerks said elections are secure and election experts have blamed national conspiracy theories resulting in local mistrust. The county election commissioners in both Douglas and Lancaster counties have continuously disputed election fraud claims.

The Douglas County Election Commission in 2024 showed the entire ballot-processing routine conducted by its office ahead of elections. The Lancaster County Election Commission has had to bat down election fraud conspiracies, including a ballot-harvesting claim that spread through social media in 2024. The commission later verified that the video showed a legally registered voter returning his ballot.

The Secretary of State’s Elections Division has won several national awards and even Congressional acknowledgements for its election operations. But that hasn’t stopped several groups from spreading conspiracy theories about Nebraska’s elections.

Evnen attempted to introduce legislation that would further clamp down on mail-in voting, but his efforts were eventually held up by concerns from election officials, some rural senators and election rights groups. Some voting rights aren’t only protected at the state level, they are federally ensured as well.

“We can come up with a solution that is a win-win, where you're not mass mailing ballots and you lose control of the voter rolls and things like that,” Petersen said. “Some things require legislative help…We'll push to get as much done as we can because that'd be the number one thing.”

When asked about voter turnout, Petersen pointed to fear and anger as the main driver for getting people to the polls.

“If you are afraid of something happening or you're mad about something happening, that motivates you to get to the polls, right? So, you know, people who are not happy about the election systems. They didn't [have] blind trust to computers and software,” Petersen said.

He said those emotions were a driver to get people to the polls to support him.

The Omaha businessman and former chair of the Douglas County Republican party secured a 10-percentage-point advantage over incumbent Evnen, outnumbering him by about 16,300 votes in the primary.

Petersen also has shown interest in the other areas of the role. The secretary of state has responsibilities over the following areas: elections, business registrations, occupational licensing, state rules and regulations, records management, international relations and youth civics programs.

He said when it comes to the business service side of the role, he isn’t going to rush to make changes.

“I'm not coming down there to destroy the place,” Petersen said. “If things are working great, great… I'm a business guy, right? Unless it really needs fixed, you don't fix it, right? If we have a problem, you figure out a solution and you make it better. But I don't change things just to change things.”

Sarah Slattery makes Democratic push for seat

Across the political aisle, Democratic nominee Sarah Slattery wants to make it easier to own a business. She previously ran for the District 2 Legislature seat in 2022.

“Right now it's really kind of difficult and painstaking to try and open like an LLC,” Slattery said. “It takes about six weeks. I think one of my, you know, catchphrases is, like, it shouldn't take longer to get the license than it did to write the business plan.”

She said she hopes to modernize the business services by updating the website and making it easier for people to get their applications through.

Another area of emphasis for Slattery is voter turnout. She pointed to the turnout in the May primary, which was at 28.5%. She called that number "abysmal."

Her plan to boost that number is through education.

“So educating people about the importance of primary elections. Educating independent voters about how they can vote in the party. There's so many that skip it because they don't think that they get to, that there's nothing on their ballot to vote for, because there didn't used to be, and that has changed,” Slattery said.

In contrast to Petersen, Slattery hopes to work with the Legislature to expand registration to same-day voter registration.

“I want every eligible voter to be able to vote 100%, and when, where and how they choose according to our laws,” Slattery said. “...Everybody, you can request your mail-in ballot, and these are changes that my opponent – he wants to change all of those things.”

And when it comes to changing how election officials count ballots, Slattery doesn’t want to see much change.

“What I've heard from our election professionals, our county election officials, is that everything works great the way it is now,” Slattery said.

She said to make that window shorter and get rid of mail-in ballots would only make the county election officials’ job harder, add room for error and cost more money in the long run.

“So there's no good reason to make any changes to the way we do things, and all of these changes would cost our state a lot of money that we don't have,” Slattery said. “So somehow I ended up being the fiscally conservative candidate in this race.”

Both Slattery and Petersen also took stances on the petition circulation process that’s recently come under scrutiny in light of 13,000 Lincoln petitions coming back as suspected fraud. Gov. Jim Pillen said he’s hopeful that future legislation will prohibit the pay-per-signature model.

Petersen agreed with Pillen, saying, “we should probably clean up that process, tighten it up a little bit.”

Slattery said she doesn’t believe in banning paid petitioners outright but does see a need for more scrutiny and regulation.

“I personally don't think you should be able to circulate, get signatures for something that you can't even vote on because you're not a Nebraska citizen, right? I think that if you can't find enough Nebraska voters to circulate your petition, then maybe it shouldn't be circulated,” Slattery said.

She added that she believes an hourly wage for signature gatherers would be more appropriate.

Bob Krist running under new America First party

On Sept. 1, former State Sen. Bob Krist announced he would be running for the secretary of state office as a member of the America First party.

Krist was appointed to the Nebraska Legislature in 2009 as a Republican before he flipped to be the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018.

Initially, he mulled over the idea of jumping into the race as a non-partisan.

Krist said he was initially asked to be a spoiler candidate by both Democrats and Republicans. He declined to say any particular names.

“A couple of them wanted me to get into particular races because they wanted to take votes away from the opposition, and they thought that my past and name recognition would do that,” Krist said.

He said he’d only ever enter a race he thought he could win.

So, after an approach from the America First party, he’s officially on the ticket.

“I realized that after the primary was over, we had two choices for the secretary of state jobs. One of them, a Republican, who basically during his victory speech made it very well known that he wanted to make the state a MAGA state,” Krist said. “And the other person, a Democrat, who I felt was minimally qualified for the job, right? Not unqualified at all.”

Krist added that this run isn’t political for him. He called it a “continuation of my life of service,” highlighting his time in the Legislature, service in the Air Force and work in the private and non-profit sectors.

When it comes to priorities, Krist said he wants to maintain the current standards of voting.

“I think it's imperative that we continue to go in the direction that we are going in the state of Nebraska. We have fair and honest elections. There have been so few indiscretions within the process, and I'm not saying the process is perfect, but it's near perfect,” Krist said.

He brought up Petersen’s plans for restricting mail-in voting.

“So restricting ballots, restricting people from their voting rights because of those distances, is almost like going back to an attitude of Jim Crow, where we don't want people to vote, so we're making it difficult for them to vote,” Krist said.

He said he’ll continue to give every Nebraskan an opportunity to vote, whether that’s in person or by mail.

“I will try to make sure that stays consistent with where I think we are right now,” Krist said. “If there are things that need to be fixed, we'll get in there and fix them. But I have a great deal of confidence in those election commissioners out there doing the job.

Krist also raised concerns over the state’s finances. Nebraska is in a $208 million budget deficit and will face an $840 million deficit on top of that in the next biennium.

“I'm concerned with the financial situation of the state, I think as a constitutional officer, I might be able to make a difference in that area,” Krist said.

He wants to make sure that in addition to maintaining fair and honest elections, he’s helping educate youths on the importance of voting.

“Education is a big part of that job. Getting out and starting with the elementary level school kids and coming forward until we're actually teaching people. It's not just a right; it's a privilege, and it's something that you need to treasure and you need to exercise,” Krist said.

Paul Rumbaugh running under new Working People Party

The final candidate is Paul Rumbaugh of Omaha. He’s a member of the newly formed Nebraska Working People Party.

Rumbaugh, a former registered Republican, shared similar concerns as Krist regarding Petersen’s campaign.

“Then the primary happened, and Petersen beat out Evnen, and that worried me,” Rumbaugh said. “I am very worried about Petersen being the secretary of state, I was worried about our current secretary of state as well.”

Rumbaugh said his transition to the Working People Party is about answering people’s problems.

“We are asking Nebraska Republicans to basically agree with me that the Republican Party no longer met my values,” Rumbaugh said.

As for his goals if elected, providing trust with Nebraskans around elections is a priority.

“There was too much talk, especially around the Republican leadership at national level and the state level, of basically stripping Nebraskans of the right to decide their own elections,” Rumbaugh said.

He also mentioned concerns over changing mail-in voting eligibility.

“We have massive amounts of our population in rural areas, and doing jobs that they don't get to just decide on a Tuesday to go take five hours or three hours or however long it takes them to drive to a physical polling location,” Rumbaugh said. “We have ranchers that have to deal with animals. Animals don't care if it's election day.”

He also said Nebraskans are facing pressure from out-of-state interests who want to take away election rights.

“Especially the Republican Party, that they want to take that away from us. They want to have those decisions outside of Nebraska, whether that's in bureaucratic hands of D.C. whether that's party power brokers in New York or California or Florida,” Rumbaugh said.

Rumbaugh said that was his number one priority when he decided he wanted to run.

“Here's Bob Evnen going, ‘oh, the Republican administration wants this. Here you go.’ Now, do you think he would have done that for Barack Obama or Bill Clinton?” Rumbaugh said. “No, he's more worried about the Republican Party than he is for Nebraskans, and that, truthfully, I think that move is also what lost him the primary.”

Alongside election integrity, Rumbaugh said he wants to revamp voter education.

“If you go on social media, the youth don't know how elections work in Nebraska across the nation,” Rumbaugh said. “Like we are failing on making sure our citizens can actually vote and know how to vote and what they need to vote and what the steps to go to and how to look for information.”

Rumbaugh also expressed disdain over Evnen providing voter registration data to the U.S. Department of Justice at the Trump administration’s request, a move that drew legal challenges from voting rights groups concerned about voter privacy.

Besides election security and education, Rumbaugh wants to smooth out the process to start a business. He said that can happen by speeding up the processing and updating technology to make it easier to create a corporation.

“Someone who's going out on their own — completely on their own, let's not beat them up with outdated rules and processes that they have to try to figure out before they even get their feet off,” Rumbaugh said. “We want them. We want them to be building those businesses.”

He added that Nebraska has been built on entrepreneurs, but he’s noticed a decline in people starting businesses.

“We're very much self-made people, but we can only do it as Nebraskans, right? We're still a group. We still need each other, and we need to make sure we reopen that,” Rumbaugh said.

Important election dates and reminders

Nebraska’s general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Most county election offices begin sending early voting ballots in September.

Voters can cast their ballots early, in person at their respective county election office starting Monday, Oct. 5. Voting in person at county election offices will end Monday, Nov. 2. All early voting ballots are due back to county election offices by the close of polls on election day. Ballots received after the polls close will not be accepted.

Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central Time on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 3. Voters can locate their polling place online at Nebraska’s VoterCheck system. There, voters can also verify that their voter registration information is up to date and preview their ballot once those are finalized by county election offices.

There are two voting registration deadlines ahead of the general election. Friday, Oct. 16 is the final day Nebraskans can update their voter registration information or register to vote online, by mail, at the DMV, via personal agent or via deputy registrar. Friday, Oct. 23 is the final day Nebraskans can update their voter registration or register to vote in person at their respective county election offices.

Read Nebraska Public Media News’ election-related coverage on our Campaign Connection page.