Online voter registration in Nebraska ends in two days; in-person registration ends in nine.
Back in July, Nebraska state officials illegally suspended the right to vote for tens of thousands of people. In a majorhanded down Wednesday, the state Supreme Court ordered them to restore voting rights to citizens who have completed their criminal sentences, just nine days before the state’s voter registration deadline.
The decision could have a direct impact on the upcoming presidential election and race for control of the Senate—if those who are affected have time to take advantage of their restored rights.marks an overdue rejection of an illicit partisan scheme to swing Nebraska’s upcoming election by suppressing lawful votes. Last spring, the Nebraska Legislature enacted, which automatically restored voting rights to citizens convicted of a crime upon the completion of their sentence.
Will the lawbreakers face consequences? Mark Porto, who serves on the Nebraska Criminal Defense Attorneys Association board of directors, told me that Evnen’s actions may amount to criminal conduct. He pointed to a statemaking it a misdemeanor for any “public servant” to knowingly violate a statute “relating to his official duties.” The secretary of state, Porto wrote, “directly instructed local election officials not to register people who the law specifically said were eligible to vote.
It seems unlikely that, after gratuitously permitting Evnen to perpetuate his plot for months, the Nebraska Supreme Court would allow such a prosecution. But the fact that state law expressly contemplates criminal penalties for such abuse of office illustrates how egregiously Evnen and his co-conspirators violated their legal duties.
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