Although the Douglas County Election Commission technically closed at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 25, employees worked until 10:30 p.m. that night. It was the last day for in-person voter registration, and they stayed for as long as it took for everyone in line at closing time to register, fill out an early ballot, or both register and vote.
“And then we were right back here the next morning,” said Douglas County election commissioner Brian Kruse.
He wants to impress voters with that message in the final three days of early voting and on election day on Nov. 5. In Douglas County — and across the state — election and poll workers will stay as long as needed to serve all voters who make it into the line by closing time.
Poll lines have been long since in-person early voting began on Oct. 7 in cities within Nebraska’s Congressional District 2 (CD-2), which includes Omaha, Gretna, and parts of Papillion, and in Congressional District 1 (CD-1), which includes Lincoln, La Vista, Ralston, Bellevue and much of Papillion. Kruse said that even during the rainy weather on Oct. 30, Douglas County handed out around 1,200 ballots to in-person voters, and wait times averaged around an hour and a half.
“The weather shall not deter Nebraskans,” he said, adding that voters frequently thanked poll workers as they turned in ballots. Kruse likes to walk around the line of voters to check in and answer questions they may have about the voting process. He said voters often tell him, ‘Isn’t it wonderful to see all the people here?’
There are plenty of reasons to vote early. Voters may be traveling on the day of or may happen to be in town on a date before the election, like Ella Tinley of Omaha, who came back from college out of state to vote early on Halloween. Or like Saskia Cain and her father, Coleman Cain, who currently live in Berlin but are registered in Lincoln and typically vote via absentee ballots. They ended up back in Nebraska and were able to vote early in person on Wednesday.
“It’s exciting,” Saskia Cain said, even as they waited around a half hour in the rain and cold outside of the Lancaster County Election Commission.
With an early vote, voters can take their time with their ballots, reading through initiatives and considering candidates — especially when there are six state-wide ballot measures in addition to special issues for municipalities. Kruse said Omaha voters have nine more special issues on their ballots to review.
“That’s always going to be my suggestion, ‘be educated on the ballot,’” said Todd Wiltgen, Lancaster County election commissioner, to voters. Wiltgen was appointed to the position in 2023, so this is his first experience seeing a presidential election in his role.
For the past two weeks, at least, lines have been formed outside the Lancaster County Election Commission, with wait times averaging between 20 and 40 minutes for voters. Wiltgen recommended coming first thing in the morning or during mid-afternoon to avoid longer waits around lunchtime or as more people get off work around 4 p.m.
Even in rural Saunders County, part of CD-2, there’s been an increase in early voting.
Eva Egr, administrative assistant to the Saunders County Clerk, said the county had 1,614 early votes cast during the 2016 election and 5,781 early voters in 2020 (although the number is considered an outlier due to an increase in mail-in ballots at the height of the pandemic.) As of Halloween, she expects the county to reach 3,200 early votes. The county clerk’s office has had 120 to 130 people per day to vote at the county building in Wahoo.
“Everybody seems to be very on top of it,” she said. “They want to vote, want to get it done.”
Egr said some voters hope that by getting their ballots in, they’ll stop receiving political mailers, calls, texts, and emails. But in her opinion, she said, the presidential election is driving a lot of early voting and voter turnout. It is possible that CD2, which gave one of Nebraska’s five electoral college votes to President Joe Biden in 2020, could play a role in deciding a close presidential election.
Kruse said both major presidential candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are also encouraging people to vote early.
“I have voted for everything I could since 1979,” said Paul Christophersen of Lincoln. “It would be inexcusable to miss this.”
He said he’s retired and had some time to wait in line on Wednesday. The cold weather didn’t bother him, he said.
On Wednesday, Hannah Gilliland also came to wait outside of the Lancaster County Election Commission. She said it was her first time voting early, after voting twice before Election Day in previous years. But she works for Lincoln Public Schools, which held its Student Vote mock election the same day for students in grades 4-12.
“And I thought, you know what, I’m going to get mine done, too,” Gilliland said.
She said there were plenty of resources on early voting for this election, citing Civic Nebraska’s 2024 election guide as one example. Gilliland previously worked at one of Civic Nebraska’s Community Learning Center after-school programs.
Some voters mentioned that they hoped to avoid stress on election day by voting early. Julie, a Lincoln voter who declined to give her last name, said there were “rumblings of things happening on election day.”
“My chief deputy and myself, we have been speaking to groups since the beginning of the year, and we always talk about the safety and security of [voting],” Kruse said and pointed to Douglas County’s election integrity webpage as a resource for voters.
He said the ballot tabulating machines are never connected to the Internet or to each other. Thirty-nine cameras throughout the Douglas County Election Commission are pointed at each step in the process.
“We do all kinds of pre-tests. We do all kinds of post audits and a post-election manual hand count administered by the Secretary of State’s office,” Kruse said. “So voters can be assured and reassured that once they cast their vote, as long as they’ve done everything properly, it will be counted and their voices will be heard.”
Egr said her office has also walked voters through the safety and security of the voting process, with one suggestion for future elections: “Anybody who wants to come and see the process, live and breathe it, should volunteer.”
– Liz McCue
