Nebraska Authorities Charge Notary Public In Alleged Election Fraud Related To Medical Marijuana Petitions

“Our investigation uncovered a significant abuse of the notary process and the false representations that petitions were properly notarized.”

By Zach Wendling, Nebraska Examiner

A notary public has been charged with two dozen counts of “official misconduct” as part of an ongoing statewide investigation into alleged fraud on two Nebraska medical cannabis petitions.

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Hall County Attorney Marty Klein announced the charges Wednesday against Jacy C. Todd, a 53-year-old man from York. Todd is a co-owner of Herban Pulse, a CBD health and wellness shop in Grand Island. Law enforcement allege Todd illegally notarized multiple petitions in Grand Island outside the presence of at least one petition circulator.

The 24 counts are specific dates on which Todd allegedly “knowingly” violated the law while performing his official duties, between January 29 and July 2. “Official misconduct” is a Class II misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to six months imprisonment or a $1,000 fine, or both.

The Nebraska Examiner called Herban Pulse seeking comment but the person answering the phone hung up. Todd did not appear to have an attorney, based on initial court filings.

“Election integrity is the bedrock of our democratic republic, and the public expects that those seeking to put an issue on the ballot follow the law,” Hilgers said in a statement.

Hilgers said “this is particularly true” for notaries in the election process.

“Notaries are officers of the public and held to a higher standard of trust and honesty,” Hilgers continued. “Here, our investigation uncovered a significant abuse of the notary process and the false representations that petitions were properly notarized when, in fact, they were not.”

Sponsors of the petition drive issued a statement saying, “Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM) is confident it satisfied all constitutional and statutory requirements for placement on the ballot.”

Hall County petition signatures

Hilgers and Klein charged paid petition circulator Michael K. Egbert, 66, on September 13 with one felony count for allegedly collecting at least 200 fraudulent signatures in Hall County. A probable cause affidavit for Egbert implicated at least 38 pages of signatures across the medical cannabis campaign’s two petitions, to legalize and regulate the drug with voter approval.

While Todd notarized dozens of pages, his probable cause affidavit states he was the notary for all 38 pages from Egbert investigated previously. Egbert allegedly wrote names down from a phone book, made up wrong dates of birth and listed at least eight voters who had died on each of the two petitions.

Attorney Robert Alexander, on behalf of Egbert, said Wednesday, “We’re just going to let the judicial process work its way out.”

Klein said Hall County Election Commissioner Tracy Overstreet and her staff “take election integrity very seriously,” and Klein credited the “diligence and thoroughness” of Overstreet’s office in signature verification and a Hall County Sheriff’s Office investigation for the charges.

“Voters in Hall County should be confident in signing petitions and casting their ballots in Hall County,” Klein said in a statement.

Overstreet told the Nebraska Examiner in September that questionable signatures from Egbert “were flagged as fraudulent and rejected and not counted toward those [validation] totals from the get-go.”

Ongoing statewide investigation

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen certified the two medical cannabis petitions for the ballot the same day Egbert was charged, September 13, based on information at the time. Both petitions qualified with nearly 90,000 valid signatures, above the requirement of 86,499.

However, Evnen pointed to Hilgers’s ongoing investigation as one uncertainty that could possibly invalidate the petitions.

The two constitutional officers have since asked a district court—in briefs for a lawsuit where Evnen is one of the defendants—to definitively declare the “true” number of valid signatures. That lawsuit is ongoing in Lancaster County before District Court Judge Susan Strong.

Hilgers and his office, in a brief for Evnen last week, alluded to the Egbert–Todd connection before the charges were filed. The Attorney General’s Office said the “presumption of validity” should be stripped from at least those petition pages, though the ballot sponsors could present evidence to have the signatures be “rehabilitated.”

“To be sure, stripping the presumption of validity is strong medicine,” the brief stated. “But it is justified here.”

When asked how many signatures could be impacted by the charges against Todd, the Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment.

‘I think it’s really disheartening’

The charges filed against Todd could, if true, lead to the loss of 275 signatures previously counted as “good” on the legalization petition and 271 petitions counted as “good” on the regulatory petition, Overstreet told the Examiner on Wednesday.

Overstreet told the Examiner, “I think it’s really disheartening that someone, first of all, would fraudulently record signatures, and I think it’s even more disheartening to see signatures that are good signatures from people who were passionate about the process potentially not being counted because people didn’t follow the rules.

“It’s sad, but I’m glad that our county attorney is upholding the integrity of the process.”

This story was first published by Nebraska Examiner.

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