After the May 14th Primary—Nebraska's first voter ID election—the man in charge of the state's votes could hardly have been happier. 

[VIEW OUR FULL VIDEO REPORT ABOVE]

Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen noting, “Ballots were cast securely and independently.” Much as he's been saying for quite some time.

December, 2022/Secretary of State Bob Evnen, Nebraska (R): “The election processes in Nebraska are fair, they’re secure, they have a high degree of integrity.”

The Nebraska Republican Party, which has splintered away from top elected Republican officials like Evnen, and that includes Senators Pete Ricketts, Deb Fischer and all three GOP House members, couldn't disagree more.

In a post-Primary statement, the NEGOP says, “Concern remains at election integrity.”

Asked by News Channel Nebraska what specific problems occurred, GOP spokesman Todd Watson says, “Mail-in vote counts (here in Sarpy County) were not allowed to be watched” by a poll watcher. Watson adding, “This is a big problem.”

The GOP solution: “Hand counting,” arguing it's “safe and effective.”

But a study by Rice University found “Serious concerns about the viability of conducting manual (hand) recounts, ”That in one experiment using only 120 ballots, people counting by hand got it right only 58 percent of the time.”

MIT’s Charles Stewart co-wrote a similar study which found that, ”Paper ballots originally counted with optical scanners (machines) were counted more accurately than ballots originally counted by hand.”

Coming out of this year’s Primary, Evnen released a statement noting, “As with every statewide election, the Secretary of State’s office and county election officials will conduct a post-election audit to verify the accuracy of the results.”

It was the last audit, after the 2022 general election, that found Evnen insisting all is well and that the numbers were on his side.

December, 2022/Secretary of State Bob Evnen: “Nebraska voters can be confident that when they cast their ballot it’s going to be accurately counted and reported.”

Joe Jordan, NCN: “What steps did you take to ensure that?”

Evnen: “We expanded an audit, we hand-counted over 48,000 ballots. Out of those 48,000 plus ballots that were counted, we had variances in a total of 11 ballots.”

Jordan: “What do you say to the doubters. There are people out there who just aren’t going to believe you.”

Evnen: “The best I can do is put the facts out there.”

Asked by News Channel Nebraska to respond to the NEGOP’s voting security concerns, the Secretary of State’s office tells me they have no comment.