Dan Osborn staffers infiltrated rival political party, tried to dissolve it
Andrew Wegley
Flatwater Free Press
August 21, 2026
Two paid staffers of Dan Osborn’s 2024 campaign joined an effort to dissolve a rival political party last year, according to records obtained by the Flatwater Free Press. The records reveal the lengths Osborn’s allies have gone to clear the field for the nonpartisan U.S. Senate candidate as he attempts to unseat Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts.
The two staffers, Christoph Marsh and Will Ramsey, joined Nebraska’s Legal Marijuana NOW Party’s executive board at a virtual party convention in April 2024, when they were among 10 people elected as vice presidents of the state’s smallest political party. That group also included at least two Osborn campaign volunteers and three others with ties to his campaign, its staffers or his political allies, according to documents Flatwater obtained from the Secretary of State’s Office and other public records.
The group gave no indication of their ties to Osborn when they joined the virtual convention. Marsh introduced them as friends who had newly joined the party and offered proof of their voter registrations. “I trust you Christoph,” the party’s chairman, Mark Elworth Jr., wrote later.
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Long before any alleged plant candidates filed to run for office this year, the Osborn supporters and staffers filed paperwork with Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s office seeking to dissolve the Legal Marijuana NOW Party altogether, according to the documents obtained by Flatwater.
Chelsea Richardson, a volunteer for Osborn’s 2024 campaign, sent Evnen’s office a notice in April 2025 claiming that the party had decided to dissolve itself with the support of a majority of the party’s executive board. Richardson provided sworn affidavits supporting the move from nine supposed vice presidents of the party, including herself, the Osborn staffers Marsh and Ramsey and Delanie Ness, a paid employee of Kerry Eddy’s 2024 campaign for the Legal Marijuana NOW Party’s Senate nomination, which she won after campaigning as an Osborn proxy.
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Elworth, then the party’s chairman, told Evnen’s office the party elected new officers the day before Richardson filed her notice, outsting all nine of the vice presidents who sought to dissolve the party. In a June 2025 letter to Richardson, Evnen concluded that the group of nine didn’t appear to have the authority to dissolve the party and rejected their attempt.
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Max Oberg, the deputy campaign manager for Ricketts, said in a statement that Flatwater’s findings marked “a new low – even for the Osborn campaign.”
“Osborn is so desperate to win he’ll dissolve parties, rig ballots, and plant fake candidates to trick voters,” Oberg said. “The steps Dan Osborn has taken to subvert democracy and undermine our elections should alarm every Nebraskan. The authorities should investigate accordingly.”
Read more here.
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