Overstreet said that while a general election may have about 120 different ballot faces across the county, the primary may have 120 ballot faces for each party.

“Everybody has some races that are the same across the entire county — the governor, the secretary of state, the attorney general — all of those state offices or federal offices can be county-wide, but you start slicing and dicing on local races, and you get a lot of different ballot faces,” Overstreet said.

Here’s how that works for different registered voters.

Those who belong to a political party get a ballot corresponding to their party. For example, registered Republicans get a Republican ballot.

For those not registered with a political party, they get a nonpartisan ballot, which has nonpartisan races like State Board of Education and state Legislature. Then, they can request what’s called a “nonpartisan partisan” ballot. Overstreet said many independent voters don’t realize they have this option – they can weigh in on some partisan races.

“You would have to request the second ballot. It’s not something that they say, ‘Hey, do you want a second ballot?’” Overstreet said. “You have to know it. You have to know that you can ask for it so you can weigh in on your Senate and House seat.”

The Democratic and Libertarian parties keep their primaries open to other voters. That’s not the case for the Republican and Legal Marijuana NOW parties. Nonpartisan voters can still request one of these ballots, but it will only have the races for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives — and that’s required by law.

Mary Jane Truemper, chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party, said sometimes the GOP has chosen to have an open primary, but for now, they keep it closed to only Republican voters. That’s caused some voters in Nebraska to change their political affiliation ahead of primaries.

“We just chose not to at this point, but we want Republicans choosing the Republican candidates, and that’s just the way we’ve decided it was best for us,” Truemper said.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said the NDP keeps an open primary because the number of Democrats and nonpartisan voters together can compete with the Republicans in the state.

“We even endorse and support independent candidates,” Kleeb said. “We make sure that they have access to party resources. We just really want to create a coalition, not only of supporting independent candidates, but also supporting independent voters.”

Constantly preparing for the next election

Political party officials start thinking about election day as soon as possible, most times after the last election.

Truemper said the party is currently assessing every race to see who is running as a Republican and who their competition is.

“One of our goals is always to put Republicans in seats,” Truemper said. “We try to identify districts where maybe there’s a Democrat now that we see an opportunity for us to have a Republican in there and focus on those districts.”

Truemper has spent the months leading up to the election working on messaging for the Republican party, connecting with county parties and looking for future candidates. She said a big part of preparation is finding ways to encourage people to vote in the primary.

“What can we do in [congressional district] two, [congressional district] one, especially if there’s not a really highly competitive race in the primary, because that affects your down ballot races, and so that’s what we’re doing now, is working out strategies,” Truemper said.

Kleeb, with the Nebraska Democratic Party, said the NDP is also focused on getting Democrats in seats, especially when it comes to the state Legislature.

“We’re really making sure that we spend some time and money on those races to ensure that in the rural legislative races that we get the Democrat over the finish line, so we have a fighting chance in the general election,” Kleeb said.

The NDP is also looking for ways to connect with voters ahead of the primary, including mailers, phone calls and texts. Kleeb said they are doing voter guides for the primary, which isn’t the usual plan.

“We usually only do them in the general, but we’re going to do voter guides in the primary this year, too,” Kleeb said. “That lets voters know who the Democrats are on the ballot, because there are so many nonpartisan races.”