Omaha candidate seeks recount at own cost after soundly losing GOP primary
Voting took place May 14 in Nebraska's primary election. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)
OMAHA — A Republican candidate for Douglas County board who lost the May 14 primary election by 30 percentage points has requested a recount at his own cost.
That could be the first such request in more than two decades, county election officials said Wednesday.
Ken Anderson has until 5 p.m. Monday to pay the Douglas County Election Commission the $2,200 cost of the recount before it would be done.
He said he plans to pay.
Anderson raised and spent $900 during his campaign, losing to Sean Kelly, who raised $21,000 and spent $15,000, campaign finance records show.
Recount would come next week
The recount would take place at 9 a.m. June 12. That is also when Douglas County will conduct a legally required recount of the second- and third-place finishers in the District 1 race for the Metro Transit Authority’s District 1 race.
Like some populist Republicans since former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, Anderson questioned the accuracy of machine-counted votes in his correspondence with the Election Commission.
“I believe any rational person will realize that the low number of cast ballots in my race make a very strong case for doing this recount entirely by hand-to-eye technique,” he wrote in an email to Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse.
Echoing themes from conspiratorial online discussions about elections, Anderson requested that the manufacturer of Douglas County’s voting machines, Omaha-based Election Systems and Software, not be notified of how he wants the recount done.
“I decry the current criteria for manual audits being as publicly accessible to ES&S as they were to me,” he wrote.
Anderson sent his correspondence from an email address named to allege that election machines stole votes.
Sought hand recount, will get machines
He had previously asked that the recount be done by hand, something state and local election officials have said goes beyond what Nebraska Revised Statutes 32-1121 and 32-1119 allow for an election counted originally by machine.
Kruse, in his reply to the request, cited the law, which says, “The procedures for the recounting of ballots shall be the same as those used for the counting of ballots on election day.” He said counting the race by hand would not be allowed.
“We will follow the same procedures that were used for the election,” Kruse wrote. “We will not be adding/subtracting procedures based on requests.”
Anderson’s follow-up request recommended additional tests of whether counterfeit ballots could be counted as real. Some populists have argued they need losing candidates who have standing to sue election officials to force a deeper look into the accuracy, trustworthiness and information security of voting machines.
Anderson served on the Omaha Public Schools board from 1991-1994. He said he works in software development and information technology.
Says he ran to force a recount
Anderson said he understands that some people will see him as an election conspiracy theorist. He says they are wrong, and that he and others who participate during a weekly conference call that includes My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell know more than they can say.
He said he never planned to win the GOP primary.
“The reason I ran my race was to get to this point,” he said.
He said his goal is to probe for information about the election system that might inform future improvements. It might also inform future lawsuits.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “You’re looking for weaknesses in the front line of the enemy. This is my way of probing. I don’t know what might happen, what could happen. I see an opportunity here that I’m allowed to take advantage of … as a way of being watchful.”
In an online post on Substack, he wrote that his “top priority is to continue my efforts to keep the votes of county voters secret from ES&S and their dark software as the state’s Constitution guarantees.”
Election officials say voting secure
ES&S has defended its voting machines and software as secure.
State and local election officials have pointed to independent audits funded by conservative and liberal groups, as well as state-funded audits that found machine counts faster and typically more accurate than counts conducted entirely by hand.
No audits of the 2020 presidential election identified irregularities that would have changed a single state’s result. Most of the legal challenges were tossed. In Nebraska, recounts typically change results by no more than a handful of votes.
Anderson received 1,459 votes in his District 5 race for the Douglas County board. Kelly received 2,668. The winner will face Democrat Brian Fahey in November. Fahey advanced unopposed from the Democratic primary.
The post Omaha candidate seeks recount at own cost after soundly losing GOP primary appeared first on Nebraska Examiner.
