Nebraska leaders call for ballot petition reforms after fraud arrests

At a news conference Thursday, Pillen said it's "vital that the people of Nebraska have absolute faith and trust in the integrity of our election process," calling for an end to per-signature payments to compensate petition circulators for ballot initiatives.

"The process of bounty signature gathering is sabotaging legitimate petition initiative efforts. It's as simple as that. It's not the Nebraska way," Pillen said. "Removing aggressive quotas would significantly reduce the flood of invalid and fraudulent signature collection efforts, primarily initiatives by folks hiring from outside the great state of Nebraska."

While Evnen called the signature fraud in the state's petition process "a despicable act," he emphasized that despite the actions of a few petitioners, the process works exactly as it should because county election officials did their job and flagged the suspected fraud.

"They caught it. They turned it over to law enforcement, and those who are responsible for the fraud will be held accountable for it," Evnen said. "Signature fraud in elections is a felony in Nebraska. Only valid signatures have been accepted in our election petitions."

Evnen said while some states only check a small sample of signatures, election officials in Nebraska verify every signature up to the 110% threshold as required under state law. When fraud is suspected in Nebraska, county election officials notify Evnen's office in addition to local law enforcement. 

This election, more than 767,000 signatures were submitted to Nebraska's 93 counties in support of 17 separate petitions and more than 542,000 signatures were accepted, according to Evnen. 

Next legislative session, Evnen said he would like to see legislation passed to reform the petition process, including prohibiting per-signature payments for petition circulators, requiring circulators to be U.S. citizens, barring felons from circulating and requiring training for petition circulators.

Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen said it's important to "safeguard the petition process so that all Nebraskans have confidence in it," highlighting some of the adjustments made to the signature verification process following suspected fraud flagged in the 2024 medical cannabis petitions.

Wiltgen said each signature is checked using different combinations of the name, date of birth or address provided. Once election officials confirm that the signer is a registered voter in the state, Wiltgen said the signature on the petition page is compared with the signature on file.

"We may use the signature the voter provided on their voter registration form when they registered for the first time, or when they update their registration. We also scan every early vote application," he said, adding that election staff are trained to look for signature characteristics.

"Is the signature printed, cursive? Is it a symbol or mark? How are the 'T's and 'X's crossed? How are the 'I's and 'J's dotted? How are the loops made on other letters? How does a signature start, transition and end?" Wiltgen said, describing the characteristics his staff looks for.

For this year's petitions, Wiltgen said signatures flagged for additional review received priority review and were reexamined by him. Other petition pages circulated by the same circulator were also flagged, reviewed by senior election staff and referred to local law enforcement.

Hall County Election Commissioner Tracy Overstreet said while she and Wiltgen are working alongside Pillen, Evnen and members of the Legislature to find ways to better protect the petition process, the suspected fraud was caught because Nebraska's "gold standard election system" works. 

"The bottom line here is that Nebraska's system works. It was and it is successful in identifying fraudulent signatures, which then are not counted toward the thresholds that need to be met to put measures on the ballot," she said.

Douglas County and Sarpy County Election Commissioners Danielle Jensen and David Jones also attended the news conference.

Pillen said he agrees that the process works and is legitimate but that he thinks it's proven that the per-signature payment model has no place in Nebraska.

"I think that we have to at least get back to that," he said.

The news conference comes after a number of arrests tied to alleged signature fraud on three election-related petitions seeking to amend Lincoln's charter. The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office said the fraud investigation has since expanded beyond the Lincoln charter petitions to the four statewide ballot initiatives. 

Evnen declined to say which counties have flagged suspected fraud on which petitions or how many counties might be involved because the investigation is ongoing.

"We're in the midst of an investigation here. The Nebraska State Patrol, county law enforcement, are in the midst of an investigation, so talking about those sorts of details, we really can't do that," Evnen said.

Despite suspected fraud, the state's two gaming petitions, the Fairness for Girls petition and the Respect Nebraska Voters petition all had enough valid signatures to clear the 110% threshold.

After recollecting signatures, the three Lincoln charter amendment petitions also met the signature threshold. It is unclear if they will be included on the Nov. 3 ballot after the city of Lincoln declined to certify the charter amendment petitions by the Sept. 1 deadline.