2 weeks Ago
Nebraska, once again, had a commendable turnout for Tuesday’s election, with some 934,000 voters casting ballots at the polls this week, early or by mail. That 73.9% turnout — there are 1,264,149 registered voters in the state — is slightly lower than the 76% of 967,000 Nebraskans who voted in the 2020 general election that was conducted in the midst of the pandemic and had a heavy mail vote.
It is notable that 11 small counties that vote only by mail had most of the highest turnouts, many of them above 80%, led by Cedar County, which saw 5,026 of its 5,788 voters, 86.83%, mail in their ballots. Lancaster County saw 150,579 of its 206,570 registered voters cast ballots, 1% below the state turnout and a drop of more than 8,000 votes cast, and 6% in turnout from 2020.
Tuesday’s top individual vote-getter was Sen. Pete Ricketts, who received 571,000 votes in his successful run for a full term, some 20,000 votes more than Donald Trump received in the presidential contest. People are also reading.
.. The most ballots, however, were cast in favor of the two medical marijuana initiatives, both receiving more than 600,000 votes, more than 70% of the vote.
The marijuana initiatives, paid medical leave and the repeal of private school funding, all which passed with at least 57% of the vote, are also striking examples of how the initiative and referendum process serves as the “second house” of the Legislature and allows the voters to take action when senators will not or when they disagree with senators' actions. There have been few, if any, reports of voting irregularities and ballot security issues in Nebraska, which is far from surprising as fraudulent voting has always been rare in the state. Nor were there any disruptions of or extremely long delays in the voting process statewide, which by all accounts went smoothly, even with the high turnout.
Not that, given the outcome of the presidential contest, it is likely that any such complaints be heard. Attacks on election irregularities have come primarily from Trump and his Republican supporters. They won and so have no reason to churn up charges against voters and the process.
Of course it is the case, as it has always been with elections, that tens of thousands of Nebraskans were left disappointed with some results, anywhere from the top of the ballot to the last measure. But that disappointment rarely if ever became accusations of voter fraud. That is because, despite pre-election concerns, the Nebraska election was properly conducted and was safe, secure and smoothly run, by the election officials and voters, who again turned out in impressive numbers in a presidential election year.
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