close
close

first Drop

Com TW NOw News 2024

    • What you need to know before Election Day in the 2024 Nebraska General Election • Nebraska Examiner
    news

    What you need to know before Election Day in the 2024 Nebraska General Election • Nebraska Examiner

    Vaseline Posted on

    LINCOLN – Attention Nebraska voters: Those of you who haven’t voted yet have been bombarded by ads and text messages and campaign mailers and messaging for months. You’re ready to vote.

    An image of acceptable forms of ID that people can use to vote early in Nebraska. (Courtesy of Nebraska Secretary of State)

    But just a reminder before you head to the polls: bring photo ID.

    The state’s voters in 2022 passed a constitutional amendment requiring a photo ID to vote, and the Legislature in 2023 specified what types of identification would be accepted.

    Voters in the primaries have already done the ID exercise, but this is the first statewide general election since the changes. If you forget an ID, you will need to go home to pick it up and return, or you will need to vote provisionally and take an ID with you to your county elections office after Election Day.

    Info for early voters

    If you plan to vote early in person on Monday, you will need to present a state-approved ID to your county elections office.

    Monday is the last day to vote in person at a county clerk’s office or county elections office. But voters can still return their ballots to a provincial mailbox until Tuesday at 8 p.m.

    By now it is too late to mail a ballot. Mail-in ballots must be received by counties before the close of in-person voting at 8 p.m., Central Tuesday.

    Early voters are showing up, especially in person

    If Nebraska’s most populous county is any indication, turnout in the 2024 presidential election could be extraordinary.

    Douglas County Elections Commissioner Brian Kruse last week projected an overall turnout of 73% in the county, including ballots cast on Election Day, but he said it could reach 75%.

    Turnout for the 2020 presidential election was 74.6%, helped in part by an overwhelming amount of early voting by mail related to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Typical presidential election turnout in Douglas is slightly lower: in the two previous statewide general presidential elections, turnout was 69.7% in 2016 and 68.9% in 2012.

    Rain or shine, the daily lines around the Douglas County Board of Elections snaked around the building, with people standing outside for an hour or more, officials said.

    “The rain didn’t deter them one bit,” Kruse said.

    Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen. October 9, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

    About 17,455 people had voted in person at the West Omaha office early Friday morning. Kruse predicted that up to 22,000 people would vote by the end of Monday. In 2020, 14,282 people voted early in person.

    Kruse said his office has had virtually no problems so far and that the election is secure. He said people who waited in line “made new friends and visited each other.”

    Kruse said he remains confident in the overall process. He called the high interest in voting this year a sign that “our democracy is alive and well.”

    “Voters should be assured that elections in Douglas County and across Nebraska are secure,” Kruse said.

    Information for in-person voters

    People who choose to vote in person on Tuesday should plan for some extra time, with higher-than-normal interest in the election, election officials urged.

    Polls are open on Tuesdays from 8am to 8pm Central and from 7am to 7pm Mountain Time. You can check your polling place at https://www.votercheck.necvr.ne.gov/voterview.

    The morning and evening peak hours are expected to be slightly longer and slower, clustered before and after daytime work schedules. The process can also take a little longer because poll workers need to verify identification information.

    Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse speaks outside the local elections office in Omaha. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)

    Valid voter IDs include Nebraska driver’s licenses, state IDs, college IDs, military IDs, nursing home or hospital records, tribal IDs, political subdivision IDs, or U.S. passports.

    People can get more information from state election officials about how voter ID works in Nebraska at the Secretary’s website at https://sos.nebraska.gov/elections/voter-id

    Those with questions can call their county elections office at one of the numbers listed here: https://sos.nebraska.gov/elections/election-officials-contact-information.

    The Secretary of State’s Office will also man its phones on Election Day at 402-471-2555.

    Poll workers from both major parties will monitor polling places statewide. Voting advocacy groups encouraged anyone facing issues to report them.

    Common Cause Nebraska has a toll-free voter hotline at 866-687-8683. Civic Nebraska has a voter hotline at 402-890-5291.

    How the results come in

    Nebraska began counting early ballots on Monday. In many states, state law does not allow election officials to count early ballots until Election Day. That delays results and often leads to longer waits for results in more populous counties.

    The state will begin posting unofficial election results online Tuesday at 8:00 PM Central or 7:00 PM Mountain electionresults.nebraska.gov.

    It will update these results every five minutes until the last county election officials call it a day, often well after midnight.

    Some provinces also have their own separate results sites that are updated throughout the night. For example, Douglas and Sarpy Counties will begin releasing early ballot counts at 8 p.m.

    Because this is the first general election since Voter ID was introduced in Nebraska, officials expect a larger number of provisional ballots will be cast.

    But election officials were encouraged that only a handful of people encountered ID issues during the May primary, and they don’t expect any major problems.

    The biggest increase in voting after Election Day typically occurs on Friday. Douglas County won’t open until Friday and count the first votes back on Election Day.

    That’s often thousands of votes, but historically those votes have rarely changed the outcome of the race, except in races with the narrowest of leads.

    The results of those early ballots returned to the Board of Elections on Election Day tend to follow the same pattern as the first wave of early voting results on Tuesday.

    GET THE MORNING CREDITS.

    Vaseline
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like