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May 11, 2026 13 mins
A contentious and controversial Republican primary race for Secretary in State is coming down to the wire.  I talk with challenger Scott Petersen here; incumbent Bob Evnen talked with Jean Stothert afterwards (in a conversation that will be posted on the KFAB Comment Line podcast link on KFAB's site and here on iHeartRadio).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott boys here in Nebraska tomorrow. It's a primary election day,
and the race between Bob Ebnen, your incumbent Republican Secretary
of State in Nebraska, and a Republican challenger, Scott Peterson,
has gotten particularly interesting. I've seen images of Scott Peterson
looking like a clown through AI fake pictures seen that.

(00:26):
I've seen accusations of anti Semitism this rate, and we've
got accusations that maybe not all the ballots are being
counted the way they're supposed to be counted. Bob Ebden
will be on with Geene Stott that after ten we
welcome on here. Now you're his challenger, Scott Peterson. Back
to News Radio eleven ten kfab Scott, good to have
you on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, thank you, Scott, and according to you, I'm fulfilling
my lifelong dream of joining you in the studio.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I believe this is the first time that you've been
here in the studio. You've been mostly behind the scenes.
I've known you for years, seen you at a lot
of different events. You've been a major player behind the
scenes in the Republican Party. Why did you decide to
run for office Anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Before we get started, my wife Ann wants to let
you know that no matter how mean you are to me,
she still loves you.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, we'll see how that goes. Now, why am I running?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Quite honestly, there's a lot of things coming out of
the Secretary State that need help. Number one is confidence
in our elections. You know, people are losing confidence in
our election systems. And that's not just here in Nebraska.
That's nationwide. You read it in the news all the time.
And the problem with that is if people lose confidence
in elections, they're going to quit voting. And not only

(01:42):
are they losing confidence in elections, they are losing confidence
in our leaders.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
We work, we work hard, we.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Elect these folks, and then they go to legislature that
they go to Washington, d c. And they do nothing.
Let's take this frame by frame here. People will say
that the reason that many Americans are losing confidence in
their elections is because President Trump's keeps saying that the
twenty twenty election was rigged, and he's the one out
there putting these things. Trump, by the way, has endorsed
your opponent in this race. No, he hasn't, He hasn't. No,

(02:12):
that's a fake endorsement. Our opponent would love to have
you believe that. But if you look at his advertisements,
it's one is a photoshopped graphic of the President standing
behind Bob Evnon and acting like he's endorsed, but he's not.
You know. By the way, the graphic has a few
other problems. It made Bob Evnon as tall as President

(02:34):
Trump and he's not, So it's kind of a goofy graphic.
We call that out. It's the fake endorsement. My mistake
on the endorsement.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Evnen I know, has been saying that some of the
things that he does in the duties of his office
are things that President Trump wants done and has not changed.
So there's certainly Trump hasn't come in here and mandated
that everything change here in Nebraska, nor would he do
that when your secretary of state. A lot of the
stuff about how things are counted and win, it's all

(03:04):
mandated by either federal or local election law.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Actually, President Trump has a couple of things that he
wants to accomplish, and I agree with him. He says,
mail in ballots corrupt our elections, and I agree with
that here locally too. We have a problem with that.
We have a thirty five day election, and what it
does almost encourages outside money to come into Nebraska, and

(03:34):
we don't know where it's coming from. They send in
people and money, and for thirty five days they collect ballots,
mostly Democrat ballots, and what happens is we lose close
races in Omaha and Lincoln that we shouldn't be losing
in good Republican districts. We lose races and we send
people like Michayla Kavanaugh to Lincoln and George Dungan out
of Lincoln. He's in a lean Republican district he lost,

(03:57):
he won by two hundred and twenty four votes. Well,
that that outside money and outside forces that come into Nebraska,
they win those races, and instead of sending people to
Lincoln who care about role in Nebraska, who care about
pro life Nebraska, we get MICHAELA. Kavanaugh, George youngin Frederickson.
There's more, and so quite honestly, the biggest problem we

(04:18):
have is that thirty five day election, and I have
a plan to fix that.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well, what can the Secretary of State do about a
district that elects and then re elects MICHAELA. Kavanaugh to
the unicameral for example.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Well, back to the solution. The solution is in President
Trump will also agree we need to get back to
a one day election and back to true absentee voting.
And I agree, and that's as Secretary of State, that's
what I will work on number one priority, because if
we can eliminate or reduce that thirty five day election,

(04:51):
it takes away the incentive for that outside money to
come into Nebraska and corrupt our elections. So it's a
number one priority and I can't wait to go to
work on it.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
There are a lot of people who have said things
along the same lines as what you're saying, and I
believe all asking the right questions. Some of them have
won some positions, whether it's a secretary of State or
a local election commissioner, and then they get into that
office and they look around and go, oh, well there
wasn't as much fraud as we thought. Well, well good,
you know, so what evidence do you have that there

(05:24):
has been any funny business going on with Nebraska vote counting?

Speaker 2 (05:29):
And actually that's their latest desperate attempt to attack me.
Let's take a step back. This campaign. Our campaign has
going so well, we're in position to win big on Tuesday.
And the proof of that is our opponent has gotten
desperate over the course of this campaign and they can't

(05:50):
argue the issues with us, so they attack. That's that's
dirty campaign tactics.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Is that? Is that an attack that he just asked
you here? What evidence?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Actually I'll explain that. Okay, okay. The first attack they
tried to You know, first of all, my social media
I don't delete anything. I've had it out there forever,
and they can't find anything to attack me personally on.
So now they're attacking supporters of mine that anti semitism.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
We will get into that supporter.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Do you have any evidence that that votes have not
been tallied the way that they should have been.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Now here's the attack. I've never said, Look in my
history anywhere, I've never said we have voter fraud in Nebraska.
So that's what they're trying to intimate, is that I'm
out there saying we have voter fraud Nebraska. I'm saying no,
but people aren't confident in our election system. That's the problem. No,
that matter of fact, Brian Cruise is going to come

(06:43):
on later and he's going to talk about how he's
upset because my radio ads are attacking him personally because
I'm accusing him of voter fraud. No, I'm not accusing
anybody of voter fraud. I never have, So that's a
false premise that they want me to defend. And look
through any history, You're not going to find anything that

(07:04):
I'm accusing voter fraud in Nebraska.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
I believe Brian Cruz is a guest on Jean Stout
the shown about an hour in the back half of
that hour that's coming up here in the KFAB comment
line after ten Scott Peterson, who is looking to be
your next Nebraska Secretary of State. Bob Evden, Republican is
the incumbent, and they're vying against each other in tomorrow's
primary election, and evident will be a guest with Gene
Stothard here in about twenty minutes. If you don't think

(07:29):
that there is any funny business and related to counting
the votes, then why run against Bob Ebden fellow Republican
for the secretary of state position.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Back to that big problem restoring confidence in elections. Bob
Evnon doesn't do anything to actually help that problem. He
basically goes around says, we have the gold standard. They're
not connected to the internet. But on the other hand,
he doesn't do anything to be transparent about it. If

(08:02):
you really have the gold standard, then there's a couple
of things he doesn't do that he should be doing.
Number one, it's in the weeds a little bit. But
there's something in the election systems called cast vote record.
It's an audit log, a digital audit log of the
ballots going through the system, and what it's for is
auditing elections. Well, in Nebraska, he tells the county clerks

(08:25):
not to run that report because if you run it,
we might have to give it to the public. Well,
that's not being transparent. Matter of fact, a week and
a half ago, there's a court case Pennsylvania Supreme Court
ruled cast vote records should be made available to the public.
So in Nebraska, not only do we tell the county
clerks not to run the reports, we're not making it

(08:46):
available to the public. So that's number one transparency. That's
a problem. Number two, if we truly have the gold standard,
let's prove it. You know how to prove it, do
a hand recount. Okay, now, close election, you don't have
to hang recount. You handcount every election. But if you
have a close election, or if you want to prove
that you have the best system in the country, let's

(09:09):
do a backup handcount. And I challenged the secretary to
do that in this race. Say hey, this is an
important race, Secretary state, let's prove we have the best
election system of the country. Let's call for a backup
handcount of this race.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
We have just a couple of minutes left here With
Scott Peterson, it seems to me because you and I
I've been asked a number of times by now two
different factions of Republicans locally and across the state to
host what I call the Republican Party Party, and it's
always a fun time, and we've had great speakers in there.
And I've always told my friend Jane cleb at the Democrats,

(09:45):
I'll go MC you're event too. But they don't ask
me about. The only person I've seen who's been there
through all different factions of leadership in the Republican Party
has been you, Scott Peterson. You've been involved there, but
as I said, behind the scenes in this party, but
the leadership and the more trumpy versus more establishment Republican

(10:08):
party has certainly taken divergent paths here, and we've seen
that in leadership fights. We've seen that in who local
party officials have endorsed in some of these races. And
it looks to me like this fight between you and
Bob Ebden is less about vote counting and more about
this budding of heads between local Republicans.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Your response, Actually, you're right about a lot of things there.
Our state is divided a couple different ways. We're divided
on pro Trump voters versus maybe establishment if you want
to call it that, or people that aren't fans of Trump.
We're also divided on Don Bacon. We have people that

(10:50):
love Don Bacon and we have people that don't like
Don Bacon. And so we're divided in a couple different
ways politically in our state. How do we bring it
back together? Quite honestly, I think if I win, I'm
gonna make it a big effort to help bring it
back together, because we need to start focusing on the
real problems instead of fighting with each other. So we
do have that problem in Nebraska. It's not uncommon. It's

(11:10):
happening around the country. President Trump is very controversial, So
you either love him or you don't. And I quite
honestly think he's doing a great job. And he's the
only one that's even shown any fortitude on fixing Washington DC,
which is the big problem.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
And finally here you you mentioned that Don Bacon has
been one that came out and said you've got anti
Semites who are assisting your campaign. I've seen some of
these posts and there are some comments that make you
tilt your head to one side and say, why did
this individual decide to say that it's a Jew money
that's running Turning Point USA? And we got to do

(11:51):
something about this. These are incendiary phrases that have been
on social media. Are these people associated with your campaign?
And what do you think about these posts?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Well, another sign of a desperate campaign is dirty politics.
And evidently Don Bacon has been designated as the attack
on our campaign and he's out there throwing anti Semitic
charges trying to attribute it to our campaign. Now, the
individual you're talk about is Robert Bohr, who ran against
Secretary Evident four years ago. Robert Borr, if you take

(12:25):
the time and actually talk to him, he's the most
passionate Christian you're ever going to meet. He studies the
Old Testament, he studies the New Testament. He has deep
philosophical theological discussions and asks a lot of questions. Now,
can you take something and twist it into anti Semitism?

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Sure you can.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
You can take anything we say today and twist it
into something.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
You know how it works. And that's what they've done.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
They've taken Robert Bohr and tried to attribute him to
our campaign with the charges of anti Semitism.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Look in my.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
History, I have thirty years of history out there. You're
never going to find one statement criticizing Israel or one
station that is a derogatory.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Toward Jewish people. So it's a false charge.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Where can people go to learn more about you where
you stand on these issues in your campaign.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Absolutely, there's a lot of information on my website Peterson
for Nebraska. That's sen Peterson for Nebraska dot com. And
just want to say this experience has been the most
wonderful experience in my life. Getting out and meeting the
people in Nebraska is just such a reminder of how
blessed we are to live in this state. So many
good people and such beauty in Western Nebraska. I wouldn't

(13:33):
give it back. Tomorrow's going to be a big day.
I think we're in a position to win big and big.
Get out the vote. Time you've heard him state his case,
that's Scott Peterson. Bob Ebnon, you're incumbent in this race.
Will be on with Jean Stot the next Thank you
very much for coming on here today right here on
news radio eleven ten Kfab

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Scott for E's News Radio eleven ten Kfab
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