Nebraska Dem Senate candidate Burbank paid third-party candidate’s filing fee

Voters leave a polling place in Louisiana during the November 2024 election. (Matthew Perschall/Louisiana Illuminator)

BY:JUAN SALINAS II

LINCOLN, Neb. — In a U.S. Senate race marked by allegations of planted candidates, an unusual thing happened on the filing deadline day: Democratic candidate Cindy Burbank paid the $1,740 filing fee for Legal Marijuana NOW Party candidate Mike Marvin, state records obtained by the Nebraska Examiner show.

A photo of Mike Marvin (courtesy of his facebook page)

Payment records from the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office indicate “Cynthia J Burbank” paid Marvin’s filing fee via a check at the close of business on the last day for candidates to file, at 5:03 p.m. March 2, via an “agent drop off.” That’s a way of saying a person besides Marvin or the Post Office dropped off the check.

Burbank had been at the filing office at the Secretary of State’s Office in Lincoln that day to file for herself at 4:43 p.m., using the same name. She filed her own paperwork to run about 13 minutes after Democrat William Forbes filed and paid for his own fee at 4:30 p.m., with a check, state records show. 

Marvin’s final day filing as a candidate came just as the office was closing, nearly two months after the other marijuana candidate, Earl Starkey. He filed at 11:53 a.m. on Jan. 8. 

Three of those candidates have been involved in some of the race’s recent controversy. 

Burbank and the Nebraska Democratic Party have accused Forbes — an anti-abortion pastor — of being a planted candidate to help Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts. Ricketts supporters, the Nebraska Republican Party and former leaders of the Legal Marijuana Party NOW have described Burbank and Marvin as plants to help registered nonpartisan candidate Dan Osborn, Ricketts’ likely general election opponent in a race drawing national attention and dollars.

A screenshot of Cindy Burbank’s campaign website on March 3, 2026.

Leaders of the Nebraska Democratic Party have encouraged voters to vote for Burbank in the party’s 2026 primary race and have described Forbes’ bid as “a political maneuver engineered by Pete Ricketts to split the opposition vote and protect his Senate seat.”

When the Examiner asked Marvin last weekend why Burbank had paid his filing fee, Marvin said, “I have no idea what is happening.” 

“I keep waiting for the check I wrote to clear,” Marvin said. “I have been unable to find out what is happening right now. … I don’t even know Cindy Burbank.”

The Examiner requested copies of any checks used to pay for Marvin’s filing, and only a copy of Burbank’s check was provided. The Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment on the specific circumstances from that final filing day.  

Burbank, in a follow-up email Tuesday, told the Examiner she was in the election office in early March and saw “the secretary’s people refusing to take Mike’s check because it was for ten dollars too much.”

“It pissed me off and I paid for it … I’ve never met Mike,” Burbank said. “If Ricketts can throw his money around then so can I!” 

Until this year, Evnen said he could not remember a candidate paying for another candidate’s filing fee over the past eight years. The other: This year in Legislative District 48, a western Nebraska couple registered in competing parties to challenge State Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering.

A photo of William Forbes deleted facebook on Cindy Burbank website.

The Nebraska Republican Party’s brief filed to the Nebraska Supreme Court as part of a failed legal attempt to keep Burbank off the ballot mentioned Burbank paying Marvin’s filing fee. The state’s high court ruled Monday that Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s action to remove Burbank from the ballot came too late. It put her back on.

Attorneys for Evnen and the state GOP had argued that Burbank’s campaign website and comments from state Democratic Party chair Jane Kleeb indicated that Burbank did not plan to serve in Congress but planned to compete for the minority party’s nomination and eventually step aside and support former Omaha labor leader Osborn, giving him a “fair shot against Ricketts.” 

Mark Elworth, a former leader of the Legal Marijuana Party NOW, has pointed to Marvin’s union ties and actions taken by Osborn supporters in 2024 to win his party’s nomination and then drop out to keep competing names off the general election ballot.  Marvin has denied being a plant. Osborn’s team has denied involvement with Marvin as well.

Nebraska U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and registered nonpartisan Dan Osborn. (Juan Salinas II and Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Burbank’s campaign website, which she named, “NOT a Pete Ricketts plant,” shared alleged Facebook photos of Forbes, an anti-abortion Democrat, attending a banquet for Nebraska Right to Life and a separate photograph allegedly posted by Forbes of Ricketts speaking at the Capitol for the 2025 Nebraska Walk for Life. Forbes has sidestepped a question about whether he wanted to address allegations of being “loyal” to Ricketts. Team Ricketts has denied any involvement with Forbes or his campaign.

The outcome of the Democratic primary and the two-person Legal Marijuana NOW primary could determine whether the general election ballot is cleared for Osborn in his nonpartisan bid against Ricketts, who faces only nominal opposition in his own party’s primary. 

Ricketts paid his own filing fee on Feb. 4 around 11:44 a.m., records indicate. Starkey and a Republican candidate, Eric Mortimore, filed as “pauper” candidates, which waives the filing fee. GOP candidate Debb Axtell Schultz paid on March 2 at 4:55 p.m. with a bank check.

Nebraska’s primary election is May 12. The general election is Nov. 3.