Voters disenfranchised: Louisiana strips counting power from 42,000 absentee House ballots

The Louisiana Secretary of State received more than 42,000 absentee ballots from voters for the May 16 election by the time Gov. Jeff Landry suspended primaries last week for the state’s six U.S. House races, according to records officials provided Monday.

The numbers are taking on added significance after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s existing congressional map Wednesday, ruling that state lawmakers relied too heavily on the race of voters when they drew the district lines in 2024. Specifically, the justices’ 6-3 ruling declared an additional majority-Black congressional district that spans from Baton Rouge to Shreveport was an illegal gerrymander.

A day after the ruling, Landry suspended Louisiana’s party primary elections for its U.S. House seats, although absentee voting was already underway and early voting began two days later.

The governor’s order pushes the U.S. House primary elections to July 15 unless the legislature selects another date.

Other races in the May 16 party primaries are going forward as scheduled, including the U.S. Senate contest. Secretary of State Nancy Landry, who is not related to the governor, has said the U.S. House races will remain on ballots, but any votes cast for candidates will not be counted.

Since Gov. Landry suspended U.S House elections, several Democratic candidates and civil rights advocates have urged voters to continue casting ballots in those races. At least four separate legal challenges to the governor’s order had been filed as of Monday.

“It’s suspended for now. It doesn’t mean it’s suspended for tomorrow,” U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said Monday during a speech to the Baton Rouge Press Club. He currently holds the 6th Congressional District seat that the Supreme Court declared illegal.

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, scrutinized Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting laws or procedures that purposefully discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.

“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” wrote Alito, who was appointed to the court in 2005 by President George W. Bush.

State lawmakers are expected to begin a new round of congressional redistricting later this week.