Senators amended and advanced a bill from general file April 30 that would allow certain cities to elect up to four city council members on an at-large basis.<\/p>\n
LB299, sponsored by Hastings Sen. Les Seiler, would increase from three to four the number of council members who could be elected at large in a first class city, when at least four council members are elected by ward. The change would not apply to a city with a commissioner or city manager form of government.<\/p>\n
State law classifies a city of the first class as one with a population between 5,001 and 100,000.<\/p>\n
LB299 also would clarify procedures for how certain cities, villages, counties or school districts may place the question of nominating and electing members to their governing boards on a general election ballot.<\/p>\n
Under the bill, the question of nominating and electing members by ward or at large could be placed on a general election ballot either by majority vote of the governing body or by petition of registered voters.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Rick Kolowski offered an amendment, originally introduced as LB417, that would require the secretary of state to develop and publish guidelines for election workers.<\/p>\n
Most states have uniform election guidelines, Kolowski said, adding that the amendment would help ensure that voters are treated the same regardless of where in Nebraska they cast a ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis ensures consistency and provides smaller counties that may have fewer resources and less frequent elections the same quality of elections,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gretna Sen. John Murante also offered an amendment to the Kolowski amendment, adopted 30-0, specifying that the guidelines are instructional in nature and not binding on an election commissioner or county clerk.<\/p>\n
Murante said Nebraska election law provides a level of discretion to election commissioners and clerks regarding the conduct of elections because of the wide variation in counties. The amendment would preserve that flexibility, he said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln supported both amendments, saying the guidelines would help the state avoid potential problems at polling places.<\/p>\n
\u201cNebraska is one of only eight states that do not administer elections according to any published election guidelines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Following adoption of the Kolowski amendment 34-0, senators advanced LB299 to final reading by voice vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senators amended and advanced a bill from general file April 30 that would allow certain cities to elect up to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[95],"class_list":["post-11676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-les-seiler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11676"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11680,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11676\/revisions\/11680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}