Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen. June 6, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN – Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week weighed in on the latest request from the U.S. Department of Justice for the state’s voter registration data — showing a willingness to fulfill the request.
Federal officials have asked states for detailed information from their voter rolls, including names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, saying they want the information to ensure accurate voter registrations. Democratic-led states and some led by Republicans have declined or are pushing back against federal efforts to gather the data over state laws protecting data and privacy concerns.
Critics have questioned the safety and potential national security risks of letting any administration consolidate such voter data in one place.
In a Sept. 29 interview with KFAB, Evnen, after seeking guidance from Attorney General Mike Hilgers, said he was “fine” with handing over the voter data because the state’s maintenance practices are “complete and proper.”
“I don’t have any problem with [the DOJ request] … I’m glad that they’re looking at other states, because while I’m very confident about Nebraska, questions have been raised about some other states,” Evnen said.
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The Justice Department sent a letter to Nebraska’s secretary of state on Sept. 8 with a Sept. 22 deadline to provide the data. A voter advocacy group sued to block the request, asking a Lancaster County District Court to find that the DOJ request violates Nebraska law protecting data privacy.
Evnen’s comments followed Hilgers’ saying during a press conference last month that he would be open to turning over the voter data to the DOJ. The federal government has sued two Democratic-run states for the data, the first legal challenge the department has brought against states to obtain the records.
The secretary of state, in his KFAB interview, again employed framing based on the “myth” of widespread voting by non-citizens, a notion that some election experts have warned could undermine trust in elections. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, analyzed elections from 2003 to 2024 and found 24 instances nationally of noncitizens voting out of millions of votes cast.
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers. July 16, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
“The reason why this is all front and center now is because over the last four-plus years prior to this administration, 10 or 15 million people walked across the border of the United States without the legal right to do so,” Evnen said.
Evnen is balancing defending the state’s elections, which his office administers, and echoing the concerns of some Republicans and President Donald Trump over election integrity since the 2020 presidential election, as the secretary looks to quash any challenger from his right flank in his 2026 re-election bid.
When asked by the Examiner earlier this year how many non-citizens had been removed from the state’s voter rolls or voted in past elections, a Secretary of State’s Office spokesperson said the agency had not “removed anyone due to their status as a non-citizen, nor do we believe that there are many such people registered to vote.”
Evnen also said he has been in touch with the DOJ to get clarification on how the voter data would be used and how it would be protected.
Fulfilling this request from the DOJ would be a reversal of the state’s stance from a similar request made to then-Secretary of State John Gale in 2017 during the first Trump Administration.
Gale declined to turn over Nebraska’s full voter information because it wouldn’t comply with state law. He expressed concerns about data privacy. A public and more limited version of Nebraska’s voter file, including names and addresses, is available as a public record for a fee.
