A new legislative session is about to begin, and Nebraskans need to be more watchful of what it is that our senators in the Unicameral will do when they think they are not being watched. Despite Nebraskans expressing much concern to our senators last legislative session about the use of machines and vulnerable software in our elections--AND despite many national news stories of problems occurring with the machines used in elections--our senators voted unanimously to adopt an amendment proposed by then-Senator Mike Flood to change the definition of "voting system" to now include "any software or service" in the "creating, casting, and counting" of ballots.
Aside from the obvious concerns of moving us to being even MORE inclusive of software used in our elections, this change in the definition of "voting system" points to what certainly seems like complete incompetence on the part of our senators, for it appears that they have revised the definition of "voting system" to now equate with the definition of an "electronic voting system"--which (for good reason) the state of Nebraska prohibits!
In the above video, I engage in a debate with Senator Hilgers, who argues that these two statutes are "very different" from one another. (And why wouldn't he defend the change made to our "voting system?" He voted for it himself!) This was reportedly done as "cleanup" language, meant to bring clarity to our laws. But does it? I don't think so. And I don't think that the two definitions are "very different" either. Listen to our debate, and then you decide. He's the lawyer; I'm not. And he's about to become the Attorney General of our state. But I really do think that our senators have some explaining to do to Nebraskans as to why it is that they sneakily added "software" to our voting system definition when so many were calling for the software to be removed.
I recently heard (for the first time ever, surprisingly, because I've been digging for an answer on this) a rather bizarre explanation from Todd Watson, who works for the NEGOP, about why it was that our definition of "voting system" was amended to include "any software or service." You can hear the story, as I heard it for the first time, in the video below.
That audio is from a recent meeting that I recently had with Senator Clements to discuss an election integrity resolution which contains within it evidence which points to verifiable instances of Secretary of State Evnen's negligence and untruthfulness with Nebraskans with regard to our elections. Any senator who is presented with this resolution and takes no action on it is as crooked as Evnen himself. The resolution also contains suggestions for legislation to secure our elections. The reason that Todd Watson was at the meeting with Senator Clements (at Clements' invitation) was to deliver to the senator some proposals for legislation from the NEGOP. I did not get the opportunity to look over any of the legislation that the NEGOP is proposing, but I do know that the Legislative Plan for 2023 that was released by the new leadership of the NEGOP was noticeably absent of any legislative goals to remove software or machines from our elections. I will concede that there are others who perhaps have better legislative suggestions than the ones which are proposed in the election integrity resolution which I presented to Clements, but I do worry very much that we will end up with another legislative session of rather meaningless bill proposals--just as we did last year--if the software and the machines are not MEANINGFULLY addressed. This absurd story that Todd Watson of the NEGOP tells about trying to get rid of Crowdstrike by adding "any software or service" to the definition of our voting system suggests to me that we should not put much hope in those in the NEGOP who are proposing election integrity bills.
It is shameful that, following what took place during the elections across our nation in November 2020, our Nebraska senators have not taken election integrity concerns seriously. The proof of that is on the record in hours of testimony from Nebraskans before legislative committees. Senators who should have given a damn about the matter of their own accord as our elected representatives acted dumbfounded when they were presented with public commentary that was a repeat of information that I know for a fact had been sent to them previously in emails (by myself and many others) and was IGNORED. And every time they hear it, they play dumb and act as if they are hearing your concerns for the very first time. I have twice requested a follow up response from Senator Clements following my meeting with him. I have received no reply yet, but the holiday is over and I will be contacting his office soon. I hope that Clements and other senators choose to take election integrity concerns seriously this legislative session. There is a lot of evidence which proves that even the "best" of our senators have been shady when it comes to addressing election integrity. Any elected official who continues to tell you that Evnen is who we should trust to secure our elections is complicit in the corruption. The facts aren't going to change, even if they try to ignore them, and history will record what it is that they choose to do.
You can read more about the election integrity resolution here, if you like: