Start with the question nobody asks
You know who your senator is. Do you know who is on the board of the company that sends your electric bill?
In Nebraska, many of those companies are public power districts. Their board seats appear on the same ballot as the Governor. The Secretary of State's certified list for this November names the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) and gives its board races the same rows as every other office.
This page stays on the part we can prove from that list. Everything else, like how many directors there are, what they vote on, and whether they're paid, is in the last section, marked not read yet.
Question 1 — What is on the 2026 ballot for OPPD?
Three seats: Subdivisions 01, 02 and 03. Each is a six-year term, and you vote for one. The race is nonpartisan: no party is printed next to any OPPD candidate.
| Subdivision | Candidate | City of residence | Status on the list |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Christian Mapes | Bennington | Nonincumbent |
| 01 | Sara Kohen | Omaha | Nonincumbent |
| 02 | Jay Ignowski | Omaha | Nonincumbent |
| 02 | Mark Gudgel | Omaha | Nonincumbent |
| 03 | Jim Smith | Papillion | Nonincumbent |
| 03 | Carol Blood | Bellevue | Nonincumbent |
Order is as printed on the certified list, pages 19–20. Names, cities, term and status are copied from the list. Nothing here is a ranking.
Question 2 — Why does "Nonincumbent" on every row matter?
The certified list marks each candidate Incumbent or Nonincumbent. For OPPD, all six are nonincumbents, so none of the three seats has its current holder on the ballot. All three are open.
Whoever wins will be learning the job. Open seats are when a question from a voter has the most effect, because nobody has a record in the job yet, only answers.
Question 3 — Which of the three is mine?
You vote only in the subdivision where you live, so you won't see all three races. Two neighbors in the same city can have different races on their ballots.
The easy button: look up your own sample ballot before you vote. If an OPPD race is on it, the subdivision number is printed there. If none is, your address isn't in Subdivision 01, 02 or 03 this year.
Question 4 — Is this only an Omaha thing?
No. We counted the public power districts on the same certified list: 33 districts have board seats on the 2026 ballot. That includes three power-and-irrigation districts (Central Nebraska, Middle Loup, and North Loup River). OPPD is one of the 33.
How we counted: we searched the list's text for "Public Power District" and "Public Power and" and counted the distinct district names. It's our count of the state's document. If you get a different number, tell us and we'll print the correction with a date.
Question 5 — Has anyone asked the candidates anything?
This site's rule is to ask every candidate in a race the same question, in the same words, on the same day, or ask none of them. Where things stand, as of 2026-09-24:
| Subdivision | Asked by this site |
|---|---|
| 01 — Mapes, Kohen | Asked 2026-09-24, by email, at the address each filed with the state |
| 02 — Ignowski, Gudgel | Asked 2026-09-24, by email, at the address each filed with the state. Gudgel's copy also corrects a 2026-09-21 note that went to his newsletter's reply address. |
| 03 — Smith | Asked 2026-09-24, by email, at the address he filed with the state |
| 03 — Blood | Asked 2026-09-24, by text to the phone she filed (no email filed) |
All six got the same four questions on the same day. Answers will be printed here in full, unedited, with the date.
For the candidates: one sentence per question is enough, and there is no length limit. This line was added 2026-09-24 after a candidate asked, so that all six have the same instructions.
As of 2026-09-24: one of six has answered (Mark Gudgel, below). The other five have not answered yet. They were asked the same day, so that is not a refusal and this page doesn't treat it as one.
In their own words
Each answer is printed exactly as the candidate sent it: full, unedited, with the date. Spelling and punctuation are theirs. We don't score, rank or argue with anything here. If an answer says something that can be checked against a public record, we check it and print that check as its own dated item, not under their words.
Mark Gudgel · Subdivision 02 · answered by email, 2026-09-24, 2:06 PM Central
1. What is one decision the Board will face in the next six years that a voter should understand before voting, and which public document would show how it was decided?
2. Which public record should someone use to judge your term when it ends: Board minutes, rate filings, the annual report, something else? Pick the measure you would accept as fair.
3. Is there any category of campaign contribution you will not accept? Name it plainly enough that a voter could check it against your own filings.
4. If a page like mine gets something about you wrong, who should I write to?
- Answer 3, the pledge. We haven't seen the pledge document or read his campaign filings. When we have, the check goes here as its own dated item.
- Answer 1, North Omaha Station. We haven't read OPPD's own reports on units four and five. That's the same homework as the unread section below.
Still waiting, asked 2026-09-24
Christian Mapes and Sara Kohen (01), Jay Ignowski (02), Jim Smith and Carol Blood (03). Each answer goes in this section, in the same space and the same type, the day it arrives.
Where we have not looked yet
This is the part most civics pages leave out. Below are the questions this lesson can't answer yet. For each one there's a document that should answer it. Each lead came from a search, and we haven't read any of these ourselves. Under our house rules, a search result is a lead, not a source.
- How many directors does OPPD have, and are elections staggered? A search summary says eight directors, six-year terms, no more than three up in one year. The document to read is OPPD's Corporate Governance Guidelines (PDF). Until we read it, the number is unconfirmed.
- Who votes on the rates on your bill? The documents to read are OPPD's Board Policies binder (PDF, "as of October 16, 2025") and the governance page.
- Who the current directors are, and which subdivision each holds. The document to read is OPPD's Board of Directors page.
- When the board meets, and where the minutes and votes are posted. Not located yet.
- Whether directors are paid, and how much. Not located yet. This will need a primary document, not a news story.
- What state law says a public power district is. This is Nebraska statute, Chapter 70. We haven't identified the exact sections or read them.
- Where OPPD candidates report campaign money. Not confirmed. Our guess is the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, but a guess isn't a source.
- How many people OPPD serves, and in how many counties. We've seen figures, but not in a document we've read. Until then, this page prints no number.
You can do this homework too. Open any link above, find the answer, and send us the page number. If it checks out, it goes on this page with your read date next to ours.
What this page does not say
- It doesn't rate, rank or endorse any candidate.
- It doesn't say what any director did or will do. No votes are on this page because we haven't read any board votes yet. What a candidate says they will do is printed in their own words above, as their words, not ours.
- It doesn't say what your electric rate is or who set it. That's in the unread section above.
Beta means incomplete. It never means fake. #PROOF — trust, but verify. Including us.
Would you believe me if I told you?
The people who run Omaha's electric utility are chosen on the same ballot as the Governor. This year, all three seats up for election are open, and six people are running.
You don't have to believe it. Open the Secretary of State's list, go to page 19, and count them yourself. Then look up your sample ballot and see whether one of those races is yours.