by The Cornhusker Guardian Editorial Board
Although Republicans re-nominated Bob Evnen for Nebraska Secretary of State on Tuesday, it was essentially with a vote of “no confidence.”
Running for re-election to an office that is normally not hotly contested, Mr. Evnen received only 43.62% of all ballots cast. This is an astonishingly low number. It means that more than 56% of Republican voters did not want Mr. Evnen to serve another term as Nebraska Secretary of State.
They instead gave Robert J. Borer 32.19% and Rex Schroder 24.19% of Republican votes for Secretary of State. Had it not been for the fact that his two opponents divided the opposition vote, Mr. Evnen would likely be packing his bags for a return to private life.
At one level, this would have been a tragedy. This is because Bob Evnen is without question a good man: honorable, highly intelligent, professionally accomplished and with a solid appreciation for the Judeo-Christian “Founders values” that made our country great. In ordinary times, The Cornhusker Guardian would have endorsed Bob Evnen for re-election.
The most important theme in this year’s race for Secretary of State was election integrity. And the voters said as much by their choice in the voting booth. They overwhelming supported Mr. Evnen’s Republican opponents.
But we are not living in ordinary times. The overarching theme for this year’s Secretary of State contest was not the reduction of processing time for incorporations, or the making of other improvements in customer service for citizens who interact with the Secretary of State’s office.
No, the most important theme in this year’s race for Secretary of State was election integrity. And the voters said as much by their choice in the voting booth. They overwhelmingly supported Mr. Evnen’s Republican opponents.
This was because Bob Evnen seemed to accept “establishment narratives.” He did not demonstrate the intellectual curiosity and the suspicion about what happened in the 2020 election cycle.
Now that Bob Evnen has won the Republican nomination for Secretary of State, the voters must hope that he will take a page from his opponents’ playbook and have a fully transparent investigation of what happened in 2020.
And if he is truly wise, Bob Evnen will work with the Unicameral and actually hire Mr. Borer as a Deputy Secretary of State to get to the bottom of things.
If Mr. Borer becomes satisfied with what he finds, and feels that all appropriate reforms will have been implemented at the statutory and administrative levels to prevent a repeat of what seems to have happened in 2020, then the citizens of Nebraska will become the real winners in this year’s Secretary of State contest.
