Lancaster sees lower voter turnout for Tuesday's election than 2020
Lancaster County saw a lower voter turnout in Tuesday's general election than in the 2020 election.
Around 73% of registered voters cast their ballot for the general election, either by mail or in person, compared to the 78% in 2020. In 2016, there was a 73% voter turnout in Lancaster County.
On Monday, Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen predicted a 70% voter turnout.
Across Nebraska, more than 934,000 votes were cast, equating to a 74% voter turnout. That was slightly higher than the 72% turnout Secretary of State Bob Evnen had predicted on Monday.
In Lancaster County, more than 150,000 votes were counted in Tuesday's election from the 206,570 registered voters. About 37% of those, or 55,974, were submitted early.
There are an additional 3,000 early vote ballots that will be counted Friday. Wiltgen said those ballots were submitted on Monday and Tuesday.
The 3,665 provisional ballots, and 41 voter identification verifications, will be counted Nov. 15. Provisional ballots are used for voters whose names do not appear on the precinct polling place on Election Day, but who believe they are registered. The registration status of the voter is then determined after the election.
"It's less than they had in 2020, but it's still a large number," Wiltgen said. "Every one of those has to be gone through to verify whether or not the voter was eligible to cast the ballot by law."
Wiltgen said the provisional ballots that are legal are filled out by Lancaster County residents who moved within the county but did not update their registration. Provisional ballots from people who moved into the county from elsewhere and missed the deadline to register will be rejected.
"Usually a lot of provisionals are rejected for a number of reasons, but we'll just have to wait and see," Wiltgen said.
As of Wednesday morning, he said it was too early to tell if any of the provisional or early vote ballots would affect any of the local races.
Wiltgen said precincts dealing with long wait times had a higher number of provisional ballots being cast.
Also on Tuesday, Wiltgen said there were a lot of spoiled ballots because voters were confused with some of the ballot questions and made mistakes. Ballots submitted with errors, such as crossing out mistakes, scribbles or hesitant marks, were not counted with the initial totals and will need to be reviewed by a resolution board.
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