{"id":32356,"date":"2022-04-07T12:50:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T18:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=32356"},"modified":"2022-04-07T12:50:47","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T18:50:47","slug":"omnibus-election-bill-clears-first-round-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=32356","title":{"rendered":"Omnibus election bill clears first round"},"content":{"rendered":"

A clean-up bill that would make numerous changes to election law in Nebraska was amended to become an omnibus election measure and advanced to select file April 6.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tom Brewer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB843, as introduced by Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, would make several minor changes to current law. Among other provisions, the bill would:
\n\u2022 prohibit electioneering within 200 feet of a ballot drop box;
\n\u2022 establish a deadline of 8 p.m. Central time or 7 p.m. Mountain time on Election Day for receipt of mail-in ballots;
\n\u2022 allow voters who cannot sign their name to use either a symbol or a signature stamp;
\n\u2022 allow county election commissioners to appoint certain election officials who live outside of the county if that county conducts elections exclusively by mail;
\n\u2022 require non-governmental organizations distributing voter registration forms or early ballot application forms to use those prescribed by the Nebraska secretary of state;
\n\u2022 allow an election commissioner or county clerk to remove a voter from the voter registry if they receive information from the state Department of Motor Vehicles that the voter has moved out of state; and
\n\u2022 establish procedures for removing a voter from a county\u2019s early ballot request list.<\/p>\n

A Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee amendment added provisions of the following bills:
\n\u2022 LB841, introduced by Brewer, which would allow emergency response providers and others participating in a mutual aid agreement who are responding to an emergency declaration by the president or governor to simultaneously register to vote and to request ballots for all elections in a calendar year;
\n\u2022 LB849, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Eliot Bostar, which would make election officials who neglect their duties or willfully engage in conduct prohibited under the state Election Act subject to a Class I misdemeanor;
\n\u2022 LB858, introduced by Sen. Robert Clements of Elmwood, which would prohibit the funding of elections by any source other than appropriations from the federal government, the state of Nebraska and Nebraska political subdivisions. In-kind contributions of food and beverages for poll workers or the use of buildings as polling or election training sites would not be prohibited;
\n\u2022 LB861, introduced by Omaha Sen. John McCollister, which would provide an optional field on candidate filing forms for the candidate\u2019s email address;
\n\u2022 LB928, introduced by Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, which would require televised political ads for certain statewide offices to be closed captioned and for a transcript of radio ads to be posted on a candidate\u2019s campaign website; and
\n\u2022 LB1263, introduced by Clements, which would establish statewide standards for ballot drop boxes. Drop boxes would have to be securely anchored, locked, Americans with Disabilities Act compliant and opened only by a county election commissioner, county clerk or election official designated by the commissioner or clerk. Boxes would be opened for accepting ballots no later than the sixth Friday before a statewide election or the fourth Friday before a special election and emptied each business day.<\/p>\n

Brewer, the committee chairperson, said the proposals were selected for the omnibus bill based on input from the Nebraska secretary of state, Civic Nebraska and the ACLU of Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had more than 20 election bills in the government committee this year,\u201d Brewer said. \u201cOur committee worked hard to identify crisis items and issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers adopted the committee amendment on a 39-0 vote.<\/p>\n

Brewer then offered an amendment, adopted 45-0, that would allow a private entity to donate funds intended to pay for election costs to the Nebraska secretary of state if those funds are appropriated by the Legislature. County clerks would be prohibited from soliciting or accepting such grants or donations.<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. John Cavanaugh offered an amendment, adopted 39-1, to include provisions of his LB733 that would prohibit foreign nationals from contributing to ballot question campaigns. Contributions from domestic subsidiaries of foreign nationals would be allowed under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n

Senators advanced LB843 to select file on a 41-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A clean-up bill that would make numerous changes to election law in Nebraska was amended to become an omnibus election measure and advanced to select file April 6.<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[174],"class_list":["post-32356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-tom-brewer"],"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\/32356","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=32356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32357,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32356\/revisions\/32357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}