Petersen says secretary of state win will help restore confidence in Nebraska GOP leaders

Scott Petersen shook up the Republican establishment Tuesday with his upset win over incumbent Secretary of State Bob Evnen in the GOP primary.

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

Despite Evnen’s endorsements from Nebraska GOP leaders such as Gov. Jim Pillen and U.S. Sens. Pete Ricketts and Deb Fischer, Nebraska voters decided against giving Evnen another term.

Evnen saw some success in areas of the western Panhandle and southeast Nebraska – and an outlier in northern Nebraska's Boyd County – but Petersen had an advantage with big wins in Douglas and Sarpy counties.

Petersen has outwardly criticized Evnen’s time in office, claiming there have been election transparency issues under Evnen’s watch. He said a big reason he ran for the office "is people losing confidence in election systems."

In an interview Wednesday with Steve Bannon on the War Room, a political podcast, Petersen said Nebraskans are getting frustrated with their leaders, which can be dangerous if they decide to stay away from the polls.

“We're really going to have a hard time electing good leaders, because they look at this thing, they go, ‘Hey, why work hard and vote if they don't do anything?’ So we have to restore confidence in our leaders. We have to restore confidence in our election system,” Petersen said.

Petersen told Nebraska Public Media News that the state doesn’t have the transparency or necessary audits when it comes to elections and election software, which is why his campaign focused on building confidence back with Nebraskans.

“If we don't fix our election systems, we're in danger of losing our country and locally, you know, people. There's a big, big group of people across our state that don't trust our election system. So that was part of the campaign. I want to restore confidence in election systems,” Petersen said.

What does restoration look like to Petersen? He’s made claims about restricting mail-in voting and conducting full hand counts of entire races in selected contests, according to his website.

Brandon Johnson, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law who specializes in election law, shed light on legal boundaries Petersen will face if he’s elected the next secretary of state, particularly around his more restrictive voting proposals.

Petersen has said he wants to limit statewide mass mailing of ballot request forms, returning to a request-only absentee voting system. He has also stated that mail-in voting should be restricted to certain groups, including military personnel, people with disabilities and people who live far from their polling location.

Johnson mentioned that the Nebraska Election Act gives the Legislature, not the secretary of state, control over who can receive a mail-in ballot. If a voter is registered and meets requirements, they can request a ballot for any reason.

If conflict does happen between Petersen’s policies and existing state statues, it would likely be resolved through a legal challenge, called writ of mandamus, that could require the secretary to comply with the law.

Another policy Petersen has said he will implement for some races is hand-counting ballots, which Johnson mentioned has repeatedly shown higher error rates than electronic counting.

“If your goal is to restore integrity and trust in elections, then you probably shouldn’t be asking for systems that are less accurate and less likely to restore that trust.”

According to Johnson, studies have shown a 5% to 10% error rate in hand counting versus less than 1% with electronic voting.

Looking ahead at the general election

When it comes to the November general election, Petersen said he wasn’t concerned about getting Nebraska votes.

“Nebraska is such a red state, a very good red state, and winning the Republican primary for this race, I'll be a heavy favorite in the fall,” Petersen said.

Petersen said in his interview with Bannon that this win will go a long way in bringing the Republican party together. He hopes to unify the Republican party, aligning his work with President Trump’s goals.

“It's time to bring the party together and now we are going to be a true MAGA state, because we are, except our elected officials haven't come along as much as I thought they should have,” Petersen said.

While Petersen may have secured the Republican win, Democrat Sarah Slattery actually received more votes, with over 100,000. In comparison, Petersen garnered 94,193 votes, according to the secretary of state’s election results.

“I'm running a campaign to bring neutrality back to this office,” Slattery said. “It has slipped towards some partisan shift in the last few years, and frankly, we don't want that when it's the chief election officer in the state, right.”

Slattery said she believes her neutral approach could benefit her in the long run compared to Petersen’s “hyper-partisan approach.”

“It's going to take votes from across the political spectrum for me to get me across the finish line in November. I'm hyper aware of that, but I'm running a campaign to bring neutrality back to this office,” Slattery said.