By Sheridan White and Courtney Bell | LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE –The Secretary of State’s office is encouraging Louisiana voters to check their registration as the state prepares for a change that will limit their choices in some elections.
Louisiana is preparing to implement a new closed-primary system for statewide elections, a shift that will limit their choices to candidates in their own parties instead of allowing them to vote for candidates in any party.
Secretary of State Nancy Landry said her department is engaging with voters to clarify the changes adopted by the Legislature and Gov. Jeff Landry.
“We have been doing everything we can to get voters ready for the changes coming up in the May primary,” Landry said in a webinar with the Public Affairs Research Council on Friday.
The closed-party primaries will limit the candidates they can choose from in the primary based on their voter registrations.
The party-based primaries will be used only in statewide elections for Congress, the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Public Service Commission and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
This includes the May election for the U.S. Senate featuring candidates like U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming trying to unseat incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy.
Republicans in the state Legislature pushed the shift from open- to closed-primaries in these contests during a special session in 2024 with the support of Gov. Jeff Landry. Some political analysts have said the change was part of an effort by supporters of President Trump to defeat Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in one of the impeachments during his first term.
The change has created confusion among voters, however, and some lawmakers are already suggesting that the state should switch back to open primaries for these positions after this election cycle.
About 72% of Louisiana voters are registered with either the Republican or Democratic parties, while 27% are registered with no party affiliation. A much smaller share, about 1%, belong to other parties such as the Green and Libertarian parties.
Under the closed primary system, participation in statewide races will now be limited by party registration in certain races. Registered Republicans will be able to vote only in the Republican primary, and registered Democrats will be able to vote only in the Democratic primary.
This marks a departure from Louisiana’s long-standing open-primary approach, where all candidates appeared on the same ballot regardless of a voter’s registration.
For voters with no party affiliation, about 850,000 of the state’s voting population, the new system introduces an extra step. When they arrive to vote, they will be required to fill out a form to select if they want to participate in the Republican or Democratic balloting. Once that choice is made, it will apply to the May primary and the June runoff.
If voters wish to switch parties in between those races, they will have to formally change their voter registration.
Absentee voting follows a similar structure. No-party voters in need of an absentee ballot were already sent a selection form to choose which primary they wanted to participate in. Meanwhile, voters registered as Republicans or Democrats will automatically be sent their ballot based on their voter registration if they requested an absentee ballot.
Landry has encouraged all absentee voters to return their ballots as soon as possible.
Voters registered with smaller parties, such as the Green or Libertarian parties, will not participate in the closed-primary system. Instead, they will receive an open ballot, effectively placing them outside of the Republican and Democratic primary contests.
The changes also reflect a broader shift in how Louisiana categorizes voters. The Independent Party is no longer recognized in the state, leaving most unaffiliated voters grouped under the “no party” designation.
The upcoming primary election was supposed to be held in April, with the runoff scheduled for May. The state Legislature pushed the elections back a month during a special session in the fall as it awaits a Supreme Court ruling that could impact the state’s voting districts.
The case hinges on the use of race in drawing congressional districts. If the Supreme Court had ruled against the use of race, the Legislature was expected to hold another special session to redraw the districts for this election and possibly eliminate one or both of the state’s majority-Black districts.
Since the Supreme Court has not yet decided the case, the May election is using the districts contested in the case. The ruling is expected during the high court’s usual spring release period, the Louisiana Illuminator reports.
“The Supreme Court will either issue a remedy or order the lower court to craft a remedy and once we know what that remedy is, we will decide from there what we have to do,” Landry said.
Nancy Landry said her office is striving to implement the new system with integrity.
“If there were things about the administration of the election, those are suggestions that we would welcome because we can make tweaks to the way we administer the election,” she said. “But we are confined to do it by the law that the Legislature said since we’re constrained within the bounds of the law.”
Information about party affiliation, registration details and voting options is available through GeauxVote.com and the GeauxVote mobile app. The deadline to update registration in person or through the mail for the May election is April 15. Voters can update their registration online for the primary until April 25.
“Make sure that you’re affiliated with the party you think you’re affiliated with, because just because you’ve been voting a certain way for years, doesn’t mean your official party registration reflects that,” Landry said.