COLUMBUS, Neb. – While state lawmakers argue over the need for photo ID’s to stop allegations of vote fraud, folks we talked with want to know more.
"I haven't really heard much about it," says Nebraska resident Justice Chwebach.
"I have not heard it (voter fraud) before since you brought it up," says Nebraska resident Theresa Veit.
Ten county election commissioners interviewed by News Channel Nebraska say that in their combined 150-plus years on the job, showing a photo ID at the ballot box would not have prevented voter fraud, not once.
Still, Gretna State Senator John Murante recently introduced a bill to put the issue on the ballot this November, in order to “ensure the integrity of elections of the state.”
“Showing a photo ID, I’m not sure, I think the voter thinks it will solve a lot of problems but as having worked elections, I don’t think there’s a lot of problems to solve,” says Diane Olmer, Platte County election commissioner since 1996.
Eight other election commissioners in Colfax, Boone, Merrick, Madison, Nance, Butler, Stanton and Polk counties say they have never suspected vote fraud in their backyards.
Olmer has seen two suspicious instances: Once an absentee ballot signature did not match up with the one on the person’s voter registration.
In the other case, a man voted early and then tried to vote again on Election Day, using his own name. Olmer says he was eventually convicted of a misdemeanor.
“I don’t know if you’ll believe this, he didn’t know that he could not vote twice,” says Olmer.
Lancaster County Election Commissioner David Shively has seen two people prosecuted in his county for voter fraud, but according to him, “In either situation, there was nothing that happened at a polling location.”
The vote fraud debate ramped up after President Trump claimed that he would have won the popular vote in 2016, if millions of undocumented immigrants didn’t illegally vote for Hillary Clinton.
Colfax County election commissioner Rita Mundil has worked elections in Schuyler, where 2/3 of the population is Hispanic, since 1994. She says nobody has tried to game the system in her county.
“No, all the time that I’ve been here, we have not had any voter fraud, not that we caught,” says Mundil.
Many small county election commissioners say that it would be especially hard to show up at a polling place and pretend to be somebody else, in towns where everybody tends to know each other.
“Our poll workers pretty much know who’s in that voting precinct, so if you’re not that person, they’re going to know it,” says Mundil.
Olmer agrees: “The idea of local poll workers and polling places is, somebody may really know those people.”
But, Shively tells NCN that even in the state’s second largest county, posing as another voter isn’t as easy as some might think.
“They would have to do a lot of pre-planning and research to know what they’re doing,” says Shively.
Also the penalty for stealing just one vote in Nebraska is up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
While vote fraud may or may not be a problem in other parts of the country, it hasn’t hit home in Nebraska.
"Not around this area it isn't (an issue), probably more in the south,” says Ryan Liebig, a Nebraska resident.
