Voting-machine skeptic Scott Petersen wins GOP bid in race for state’s top election official

Omaha businessman Scott Petersen ousted two-time incumbent Secretary of State Bob Evnen in a race tallied by the very same machines Petersen cast doubt on during his campaign.”Some of the testing standards haven’t been updated since 2019,” Petersen said. “So to think they’re not vulnerable to tampering is naive.”READ MORE: 2026 primary election results: Nebraska voters decide nominees in Secretary of State racePetersen, who beat Evnen by 10 points, said even that race is an example of where he’d like to see more transparency in the system.”Quite honestly, if you want to prove that we have great election systems, do some backup hand counts and prove it, even in this race,” he said. “I’m not afraid of that because I think it’s just something that the public needs to have.”Petersen won 10 of 11 counties that vote entirely by mail: Stanton, Dixon, Merrick, Boone, Cherry, Clay, Cedar, Knox, Morrill and Dawes. But he openly questions the practice. Only one of those, Garden County, went for Evnen.”Mail-In voting corrupts our elections,” he said. “We do have a problem. We have a 35-day election, quite honestly, with mail-in voting… We need to get back to Election Day.”Petersen said the people he spoke with in those counties want to return to in-person voting, and he said he would work to give them that option if he wins in November.Petersen said the race was about re-instilling confidence in Nebraska’s elections. He said Evnen didn’t do enough to address those concerns from voters.”You need to prove that we have absolutely verifiable results when we have elections,” he said.University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor Dr. Kevin Smith said the result was surprising, given the wave of endorsements Evnen received from elected Republicans across the state.”I don’t think there’s anything in the record that suggests that there’s an issue that most voters would take umbrage at or certainly not to the extent that they would want to throw him out of office, and especially that he was an incumbent with all the advantages of incumbency,” Smith said.Smith said Petersen’s rise makes Nebraska unique and that his platform of distrust in ballot machines and mail-in voting is part of a larger shift across the GOP.”It certainly puts Nebraska at the forefront of a movement where state government essentially is expressing little faith in the electoral process that it is legally in charge of,” Smith said.Evnen touted past work in a concession statement Monday morning, calling his two terms in office “the honor of a lifetime.””While we didn’t get the result we wanted, I look forward to serving out the remainder of my term, and I will work to ensure a seamless transition following the general election. Thank you, Nebraska,” Evnen said in the statement.That general election will see Petersen pitted against Sarah Slattery, who swept the Democratic Primary with more than 90% support.”I am running to bring some neutrality back to this office,” Slattery said. “And it is an office that is largely administrative. There is no room for partisanship. It’s started to shift that way in the last few years.”Slattery said Petersen’s platform is partisan and divisive and said she’s “cautiously optimistic” about her chances in November, despite a two-to-one Republican to Democrat ratio across the state.”It’s an uphill battle no matter what, but I’m just going to work really hard getting out across the state this summer, meeting people where they’re at, and talking to them face-to-face about the reality of what this office does and what it needs in a new secretary of state,” Slattery said.Make sure you can always see the latest news, weather, sports and more from KETV NewsWatch 7 on Google search.NAVIGATE: Home | Weather | Local News | National | Sports | Newscasts on demand |