Officials reiterate that Nebraska elections don’t have widespread fraud

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Two election officials gave a presentation at the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday morning explaining election security.

Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen and Nebraska Deputy Secretary of State Wayne Bena said there hasn’t been any evidence of widespread fraud in recent elections.

Bena said that after the 2022 election, Nebraska election workers tested ballots from at least one precinct in every county.

They hand-counted a random selection of ballots from federal, state and county races, which were compared to the results from machine counting.

Out of 48,292 ballots that were hand-counted, only 11 had discrepancies.

Bena said that’s an error rate of .0002%. He said several of the discrepancies were light marks or erasure marks left on ballots that were miscounted by the machine.

SEE ALSO: Audit shows Nebraska vote-counting machines had ‘minuscule’ error rate

Bena also explained how the machines work to count votes on election day after security was enhanced in 2020.

“Each one of our machines that count ballots, let me be clear, are not connected to the internet at any point,” he said. “They have no wireless capability; they have no Bluetooth capability. They are standalone items that cannot be connected in any way. There’s not even a port to connect to the internet.”

He said once the ballots are counted, they are taken via a military-grade encrypted USB drive to an “air-gapped” computer that compiles the results.

Bena said an air-gapped computer is one that also has no connection to the internet.

“It can’t even run solitaire,” he said. “The only program on this computer is to compile the results.”

He also reassured the public that mail-in ballots are legitimate, saying there are measures in place that prevent anyone from getting more than one vote.

“In the event that, for whatever the reason for the benefit of the doubt, that 10 ballots are sent to your house, first one back wins,” he said. “I highly doubt that people are getting multiple ballots, but the security that’s in place for early ballots would only allow for one to come back and only count if it matches your signature on file.”

A group of citizens at the meeting spoke during public comment, saying they still think there is voter fraud going on in the state.

One woman said she’s knocked on doors and heard from people who received multiple ballots.

“I don’t know if you heard him say, ‘Yeah there were some reports of multiple ballots, but the first one sent in is the only one that counts,'” she said. “I’m appalled with that. So, what about the multiple ballots? This is manipulation.”

Bena said when it comes to election security, the most dangerous thing right now is social media being used to spread misinformation and doubt about election results.