Bills introduced in Nebraska Legislature to increase election security

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - During the 2020 presidential election, concerns of fraudulent voting came to a head as more people than usual had to use mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. Three bills in the Nebraska Legislature are aiming to tighten election security.

The three bills are LB457 introduced by Senator Rick Holdcroft, LB193, and LB808 by Senator Steve Halloran.

In sum, the three bills would require all voting machine parts to be manufactured in the United States to lessen the chance of foreign tampering, to implement video recording devices in all voting locations, as well as giving counties the option to hand re-count future legislative races instead of machine counting.

Supporters based their arguments off of claims of people receiving mail-in ballots who no longer live in the state, as well as the possibility of new technology that could allow unauthorized individuals to compromise voting machines.

“As long as we have machines in use, in any form, we cannot be guaranteed 100% that we have accurate, total, truthful, elections.” said Linda Vermooten, a supporter of all three bills.

The opponents based their claims on the lack of official evidence of intentional voter tampering, and the fact that the bills would cost Nebraska taxpayers $16 million.

“LB457′s video surveillance requirement is another overreaching solution to a problem that does not exist,” Arlo Hettle, an opponent of all three bills said. “There is no evidence of fraudulent voting and we do not need to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on surveillance cameras to catch non-existent criminals.”

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen has gone on record saying Nebraska elections are fair and trustworthy.

The government, military, and veterans affairs committee will decide whether to vote these bills to the debate floor.

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