Nebraska’s Secretary of State Faces Right-Wing Primary Challenge Over Election Security Claims

Nebraska’s Secretary of State Bob Evnen is gearing up for a tough Republican primary battle against Omaha businessman Scott Petersen, who is pushing election conspiracy theories that echo former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud. The stakes are high as voters decide whether to stick with Evnen’s steady stewardship or hand control of Nebraska’s elections to a candidate who doubts the integrity of the system.

Evnen, who oversees a state election system he calls the “gold standard,” has spent recent weeks on a “transparency tour,” publicly demonstrating the rigorous testing of Nebraska’s ballot-counting machines. He pointed out that every machine is tested multiple times each month and that the state conducts hand-count audits after elections, selecting random precincts to verify results. These measures, he says, ensure election security and transparency.

But Petersen is not convinced. He has repeatedly questioned whether Nebraska’s voting machines could be hacked, despite assurances from election officials that the machines do not connect to the internet and that results are uploaded via flash drive in a secure process. Petersen also advocates restricting mail-in voting to military personnel, people with disabilities, and voters living far from polling places—an approach that would roll back broader mail voting access in the state.

Most strikingly, Petersen calls for full hand counts of all races, especially close ones, a method experts warn is less reliable, more expensive, and far more time-consuming than machine counts. For example, a hand count in a Texas county during the 2024 Republican primary took nearly 24 hours and required 200 people. Election experts widely agree that hand counting is impractical and can introduce errors.

The primary challenge is the latest in a series of attacks on Evnen from the right wing of the Nebraska GOP, which has been energized by Trump’s persistent lies about the 2020 election. Evnen survived two similar challenges in 2022, when his opponents claimed widespread voter fraud without evidence, but those challengers collectively won more votes than Evnen himself.

Petersen’s campaign is buoyed by endorsements from 18 county Republican parties and support from the faction of the Nebraska GOP that helped unseat leaders aligned with former Governor Pete Ricketts. Evnen, meanwhile, boasts endorsements from established Republican officials, including Senator Ricketts and Representative Adrian Smith.

The race has grown heated, with Petersen attacking Evnen’s job performance on social media and Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, publicly criticizing Petersen’s election conspiracy rhetoric. Bacon even labeled Petersen the “President of the TinFoil Hat Club” and condemned antisemitic comments from Petersen supporters. Petersen denied any involvement and dismissed Bacon’s criticism as “dirty politics.”

Evnen finds himself in a difficult position: defending the integrity of Nebraska’s elections while confronting a faction within his own party that embraces unfounded election fraud claims. This primary fight is more than a local contest—it is part of a national pattern where election officials who uphold democratic norms face relentless attacks fueled by lies that undermine public trust and threaten the very foundation of American democracy.

As Nebraska voters head to the polls, the question looms: will they reject the dangerous election denialism that has spread across the country, or will they hand the keys of their elections to a candidate who echoes the falsehoods that continue to corrode democracy?