Why Geaux Vote? Racial Disparities in Louisiana Voter Turnout and Opportunities for Intervention

Article by Victoria (Tori) Wenger*

Louisiana’s statewide gubernatorial elections in 2023 recorded the lowest turnout among comparable elections in decades. Turnout among Black voters was markedly worse than the average, charting more than 12 percent lower than white Louisianians according to data from the Secretary of State. Despite an uptick in overall turnout in the presidential elections the following November, disparities persisted across racial groups and overall turnout plummeted to record lows in the December 2024 statewide general elections. This article presents a place-based assessment of the forces driving Louisiana’s vast disparities in turnout across racial groups. Specifically, it explores the legal, social, economic, and institutional factors driving disparate turnout rates across the state. These include election administration barriers to voter access before and after Shelby County v. Holder, the impact of noncompetitive and off-cycle elections, the influences of racial and political polarization, and the effects of dilutive maps following redistricting. The article couples legal, policy, and data analysis with interviews of voters and organizers leading local civic engagement efforts to identify the state-specific factors that together drive Louisiana’s turnout disparities. It centers their expertise in charting a path forward to narrow the turnout gap in their state, demonstrating how solutions to racial disparities in voter turnout nationwide deserve place-based analysis and problem-solving.

I. Introduction

Louisiana’s statewide elections in 2023 recorded the lowest turnout among comparable elections since the late 1990s, if not longer.¹ Turnout among Black Louisianians trailed behind other voters, charting more than 12 percentage points lower than white Louisianians according to data reported by the Secretary of State.² Despite an uptick in overall turnout in the November 2024 Presidential and Open Primary Elections,³ disparities persisted across racial groups,⁴ and overall turnout plummeted in the December 2024 General Elections, which included key constitutional amendments.⁵ This article explores the forces that dilute and deter Black voter participation in the Bayou State and proposes areas for policy, legal, and organizing interventions. Coupling data analysis with public commentary and interviews with Louisianians on the frontlines of voter engagement, this article aims, first, to diagnose the underlying causes of Louisiana’s turnout gap. There are many.

Numerous scholars document the ways that racial discrimination and socioeconomic disparities perpetuate gaps in voter turnout across racial groups in the United States.⁶ Louisiana, home to the second-largest percentage of Black residents among states in the nation, presents no exception to these norms.⁷ Often ranking at the bottom of charts for socioeconomic opportunities and highest for measures of racial inequality,⁸ Louisiana provides a case study for how factors like disparate educational opportunities and access to resources can drive the racial turnout gap.⁹ Addressing turnout disparities in Louisiana requires first grappling with these dynamics—in Louisiana and nationwide.

However, Louisiana is unique for a variety of other legal, historical, and structural factors that further explain disparities in voter turnout across racial groups. Up until the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), Louisiana was one of just nine states covered in full by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required federal oversight and sign-off of voting policy and administrative changes prior to enactment to prevent racial discrimination in the places with the worst records of suppression.¹⁰ Now, unregulated hurdles to voting access, such as inaccessible changes to polling sites in Black communities, compound with already burdensome processes to participate in the political process from registration through voting on Election Day.¹¹

Louisiana is also one of only four states that holds state executive and legislative races off-cycle from federal elections.¹² And it is the only state in the nation that has maintained its unique open primary model, which further distinguishes the timing and mechanics of the voting process from other norms nationwide.¹³ Louisiana’s decentralized and constant election cycles perpetuate confusion and voter fatigue,¹⁴ and depreciate resources for election administration, political campaigns, and nonpartisan voter mobilization efforts.¹⁵ These factors are amplified in Louisiana’s Black communities due to less access to information and resources.¹⁶

Moreover, for generations, Black Louisianians have been forced to elect candidates for federal and state legislative leadership on maps that dilute their voting power.¹⁷ Patterns of racially polarized voting in the state make it exceedingly difficult for Black voters to elect their candidates of choice in districts where they do not comprise a voting majority.¹⁸ No Black candidate has won a statewide election for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or Senate since at least Reconstruction—if ever.¹⁹

Recent trends in turnout suggest that the viability of Black voters’ preferred candidate at the top of the ticket may help shape the turnout gap.²⁰ At the same time, correlation between race and party alignment means Black voters in the deeply conservative state are uniquely susceptible to the effects of partisan polarization and the consolidation of the Republican Party’s power amidst Democratic Party disinvestment.²¹ Where Black voters are unlikely to be able to elect their candidates of choice or see the policy changes they desire enacted, there is less incentive to vote.

The 2023 elections marked a suspended moment in time before cases contesting the state’s congressional map,²² state legislative maps,²³ and state supreme court districts were positioned to challenge the status quo and provide Black voters with new opportunities to elect candidates of their choice.²⁴ In the meantime, elections proceeded on maps that undermined Black voters’ access to political power.²⁵ In 2024, while the future of fair maps remained tentative pending ongoing litigation, congressional races held on a map with new opportunity districts gave some initial insights into the impact of dilutive districts on Black voter turnout. While Black voter turnout on average statewide vastly trailed white voter participation, these gaps narrowed in districts where Black voters finally had an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.²⁶

Louisiana’s unique history, methods of elections, and political dynamics emphasize the core takeaway that there is not one singular driving force behind racial disparities in voter turnout across the state—there are many. Like Louisiana’s rich Creole history and famed cuisine, it is not the separate elements alone, but instead how they mix, that makes Louisiana’s turnout gap distinct. A place-based assessment is thus necessary to both diagnose the issues underlying these disparities and devise a comprehensive strategy to close the gap. As identified through the interviews that inform this article, Louisianians on the frontlines of civic engagement and Black voter empowerment suggest that the recipe to narrow the turnout gap requires a uniquely Louisianian mix of solutions. Along with legal, policy, and data analysis, this article aims to center their expertise in charting a path forward to address and remedy Louisiana’s turnout disparities.

II. Legacies of Discrimination and Determinants of Voting

Depreciated voter participation is tied to socioeconomic disadvantage in core measures of civic life and community wellness like education, employment, healthcare, and criminal law enforcement.²⁷ Common with trends across the United States, voter participation in Louisiana is thus shaped, in part, by legacies of racial discrimination in these areas.²⁸ Understanding Louisiana’s voter turnout gap requires first charting existing research on the interplay of voting and socioeconomic opportunity measures, many of which drop to their lowest point nationwide in the state.²⁹

The U.S. Senate acknowledged the interplay of voting access and socioeconomic opportunity in the Senate Report accompanying the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 1982, specifically listing “the extent to which members of the minority group in the state or political subdivision bear the effects of discrimination in areas such as education, employment, and health, which hinder their ability to participate effectively in the political process” as one of the factors indicative of discriminatory electoral systems in a jurisdiction.³⁰ The Report accurately recounted that “courts have recognized that disproportionate educational, employment, income level, and living conditions arising from past discrimination tend to depress minority political participation.”³¹ Moreover, the Report established that in places with these conditions where Black voter participation is deflated, Voting Rights Act plaintiffs need not even prove a “causal nexus between their disparate socio-economic status and the depressed level of political participation.”³² Still, many scholars and legal experts have both recorded these trends and theorized the causal links between socioeconomic opportunity and voting.

For example, voter participation nationwide is correlated to levels of educational attainment with a positive relationship between a voter’s level of education and their voting consistency.³³ Similar trends have been recorded across other measures of socioeconomic status, including income.³⁴ Lack of access to a vehicle, for instance, provides one example of a clear and tangible barrier to voting access that is aligned with socioeconomic disadvantage.³⁵ Experts have also repeatedly cited how greater availability of time, money, and civic skills, which are associated with higher income and education levels, enable voters to more seamlessly navigate the research and costs required to vote.³⁶ Poor healthcare and limited mobility can also have disenfranchising effects by creating or amplifying barriers to the ballot. In November 2020, roughly 13 percent of registered respondents to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey cited “illness or disability” as their reason for not voting.³⁷ This can be attributed in part to issues with poll site accessibility, burdensome vote-by-mail requirements, and other unmet accommodation needs.³⁸ Finally, interaction with criminal law enforcement and incarceration can further deplete civic engagement through tangible barriers, such as felony disenfranchisement policies and other stigmatizing effects.³⁹

Whatever the driving forces for the correlation between socioeconomic indicators and voter turnout, the intersections with racial disparities are prominent and further fuel the amplitude of Louisiana’s racial turnout gap. Comparative analysis conducted by the Education Trust ranked Louisiana last of all fifty states in degree attainment among Black residents.⁴⁰ The four-year public high school graduation rate was ten points lower for Black students in Louisiana compared to their white peers at the end of the last decade.⁴¹ Undergraduate and graduate degree attainment among Black men in Louisiana was also lowest of all reported race and gender subgroups.⁴²

Wage disparities are similarly drastic—factoring disparities across gender subgroups, Black men and women both earn less than their white counterparts.⁴³ Black Louisianians earn the least in wages among racial subgroups, on average only $22,430 annually.⁴⁴ Less than half of Black households own the home they live in, compared to over two-thirds of white households,⁴⁵ and Black households are less likely to have access to a vehicle.⁴⁶

According to studies previously posted by the Louisiana Department of Health, Black Louisianians reported higher instances of poor physical and mental health days compared to white Louisianians.⁴⁷ Limited access to transportation is further compounded for Black people with disabilities, who are also less likely to have access to their own vehicle.⁴⁸

Black people also bear the greatest weight of the criminal legal system in Louisiana,⁴⁹ which once earned the title of the “World’s Prison Capitol” for its excessive rates of incarceration.⁵⁰ Black people in the state disproportionately face felony convictions, which carry disenfranchising consequences during incarceration and burdens to restoring the right to vote after incarceration.⁵¹

Analysis of the voter turnout gap cannot be disentangled from disparities across these measures of civic life and opportunity. “[P]eople underestimate the power of poverty,” said Ashley Shelton, President and CEO of Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, a nonpartisan civic engagement powerhouse in Louisiana.⁵² People are in a place where “they’re so disconnected from their power,” she explained.⁵³ Your life “does not lend itself” to the voting process when “you’re working two jobs and you’ve missed the window.”⁵⁴ It will remain exceedingly difficult to realize the full potential of voting policy interventions to narrow the turnout gap absent parallel efforts to narrow socioeconomic disparities—in Louisiana and beyond. Understanding Louisiana’s voter turnout disparities requires first confronting these racial disparities more generally.

III. Trends in Louisiana Voter Turnout

While socioeconomic inequalities provide a foundation to help explain the persistence of turnout disparities, further analysis of turnout trends over time in Louisiana helps pinpoint additional causal variables. Data shows that, with rare exception, Black voters participate at lower rates than their white counterparts in Louisiana.⁵⁵ However, the variance in the amplitude of the turnout gap over time emphasizes the need to assess a broader mix of factors that uniquely influence turnout across Louisiana’s election cycles⁵⁶—like candidate appeal and viability, availability of voting mechanisms, and access to information.⁵⁷ Indeed, data from statewide executive elections indicates that there is not one dominant story to be told regarding trends in turnout and the racial turnout gap over time.⁵⁸

The charts attached in the Appendix specifically track the dueling four-year terms for state executive/legislative offices and presidential election cycles, which are held off-cycle from each other.⁵⁹ Outlying data points across these cycles provide multiple hypotheses for what may drive the turnout gap. For example, the 2007 and 2023 gubernatorial election cycles stand out due to upticks in turnout disparities compared to the preceding gubernatorial cycles. Both elections followed the tenure of a Democratic governor not seeking reelection, followed by a Republican who was elected outright in a primary election—cancelling the need for a runoff election.⁶⁰ Conversely, the lowest turnout gap in both the gubernatorial and presidential cycle years were recorded in years when a Democratic incumbent at the top of the ticket was running for reelection—President Barack Obama in 2012 and Governor John Bel Edwards in 2019, who were both successful in their reelection bids,⁶¹ and shown to be a clear candidate of choice among Black voters.⁶² This supports a hypothesis that political cohesion among Black voters coupled with the familiarity and viability of their preferred top-ticket candidates may help fuel voter enthusiasm and turnout.⁶³ In other words, Black voters appear more likely to vote when there is hope their candidate of choice can win. In 2024, Louisiana’s two majority-Black congressional districts also reported lower disparities in voter turnout than the other white-majority congressional districts, supporting a similar hypothesis that hope of electing a candidate of choice can help propel turnout in opportunity districts, in keeping with findings of prior studies.⁶⁴

Still, of elections studied herein, the only election when turnout was higher among Black voters than white voters was the 2020 December general elections, by a narrow margin just over half a percentage point.⁶⁵ By then, the presidential race was no longer driving the top of the ticket and many other contests, including multiple congressional races, had been resolved without need for a runoff.⁶⁶ However, a court order expanding early voting days and qualifications for mail-in voting was in place—potentially lessening barriers to the ballot.⁶⁷ Black voters accounted for 33.85 percent of early ballots cast in the election, despite comprising only 31.21 percent of the registered voting population at the time.⁶⁸

While not charted separately in the Appendix, many of the elections that fall out of the executive election cycles recorded drastically lower voter turnout statistics and sustained turnout disparities. As just one example, a February 13, 2023 special primary election for a state house seat in New Orleans, District 93, recorded turnout at just 6.12 percent total, with white voters participating at a rate of 7.09 percent and Black voters participating at a rate of only 5.81 percent.⁶⁹

Overall, the election data does not identify one singular driving force behind the turnout gap, but instead offers many points of entry for further analysis of the unique nature of Louisiana’s elections system, legal landscape, political culture, and socioeconomic contexts. A call for this multidimensional analysis was echoed across the opinions of local community leaders and voting rights advocates, who noted that hurdles to turnout are multifold. Indeed, Louisiana’s turnout disparities are fueled at everystage of the political process and undergirded by historic and contemporary racial inequities that shape access to opportunity across all measures of public life.

IV. Driving Forces of Louisiana’s Turnout Gap

A variety of themes resonate when asking Louisianians working closest to voters to describe the narratives they hear from registered voters who chose not to, or were prevented from, voting. These insights provide a lens into the challenges that not only voters face, but also the organizers trying to activate them to continually engage in the political process.

Voids of information, resources, and hope that their votes can influence election outcomes and policymaking were repeated themes shared across the narratives regarding Black voters’ reasons for not voting. Many of these themes bolster data points in the sociological and election data reviewed above—while others speak to the importance of broadening research methods to get a fuller picture of Louisiana’s unique turnout gap.

For example, Michael McClanahan, president of the NAACP Louisiana State Conference, described the full “gamut” of rationales he has heard in reply when asking voters why they missed elections:

I didn’t know it was Election Day…

People that were going to come around didn’t come around this time…

I was going to vote [but] the people [are] going to elect who they want to elect anyway…

The roads are still bad and… I’ve been voting for years. Nothing has changed in our community…

I’m tired, you know. I’m tired of seeing the same old same old. Nothing’s gonna really change…

It’s up to you, young people, to vote now. [It’s] not up to me anymore…

Southern [University] has a home game, I’ll vote next time…⁷⁰

M. Christian Green, president of the League of Women Voters – Louisiana, recounted the “lack of knowledge” and confusion around the “mechanics of the election” that she and other members of the League of Women Voters heard while phone banking low-frequency voters in 2023.⁷¹ “We have people not knowing that an election was coming up. Not knowing who was on the ballot. If you refer to it by its name, ‘the Gubernatorial Primary,’ they sometimes wondered if it was just the governor being elected,” she explained.⁷² “[T]here were people who believed that…if they had not voted in the primary, they could not vote somehow in the general. So just real lack of knowledge about when things were happening.”⁷³

Keturah Butler-Reed, a former organizer with Black Voters Matter – Louisiana, described similar challenges with ensuring that voters understand the differences between each election cycle and maintain momentum to go back and vote, time and time again.⁷⁴ “Mobilization is like 50,000 different steps…But then you also have to repeat it and…have patience with it throughout the process,” she explained.⁷⁵ She described the “labor that’s necessary” to avoid drop-off at each point of engagement along the way. Whether the message is “get registered,” “meet the deadlines,” or “go to vote,” a voter then must “rinse and repeat and go to vote again, and again, and understand the difference between this election and that election,” she explained.⁷⁶

Professor Robert Collins of Dillard University, a political analyst, described conducting some “unscientific polling” through City Park in New Orleans the day following the gubernatorial primary election in 2023.⁷⁷ He asked people whether they voted and, if not, why not.⁷⁸ “The responses I got [were] normally along the lines of: ‘Well, it’s not going to matter anyway, we’re a conservative state. No matter what you do, you know, it doesn’t matter. If Jeff Landry won in the primary or in the general, he was going to win in the general election anyway.”⁷⁹ Along similar lines, Ashley Shelton discussed the unique discouragement Black voters have faced in recent election cycles.⁸⁰ “The narratives are clear,” she said, “Black voters…feel like, ‘Why participate? It doesn’t matter, they’re going to do what they wanna do.’”⁸¹ “It’s one thing to have access to the ballot,” she continued.⁸² “It’s something else to be able to go into the ballot booth and feel like you’re making good decisions.”⁸³ Maxine Crump, Founder and President/CEO of Dialogue on Race Louisiana, attributed depleted participation among Black voters to a level of disappointment in how elected leaders have failed to respond to their communities’ needs: “Many Blacks who tried to vote or who tried to voice their complaints have given up,” she said.⁸⁴ “They do not feel like they can make a difference.’”⁸⁵

The observations from this range of advocates and civic thought leaders highlight the mix of social, structural, and political dynamics that shape why registered voters (and Black voters, especially) skip elections by choice or other circumstances. Building on these accounts, the following sections pull from social science research, case law, policy sources, and interviews to better understand how these trends either mirror or diverge from broader patterns in the turnout gap nationwide and what unique mix of solutions can help narrow Louisiana’s racial turnout gap.

A. Barriers to the Ballot: Legal and Administrative Hurdles to Voting

Until 2013, Louisiana was among the states subject to the coverage formula imposed by Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required states with the worst histories of voting discrimination to obtain federal “preclearance” before enacting new voting laws, procedures, or district maps.⁸⁶ In Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula as outdated but maintained that a preclearance requirement could be imposed again if Congress created a new method to establish the jurisdictions covered.⁸⁷ Despite legislative efforts like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, no bill has succeeded.⁸⁸ Previously covered states, like Louisiana, have been left without proactive federal oversight of voting rights threats for over a decade.

Voting policies imposed both before and after the Shelby decision may help to explain the turnout gap. Studies from the Brennan Center for Justice noted that following Shelby, the turnout gap increased in states previously covered by the preclearance requirement—including Louisiana.⁸⁹ This is unsurprising given that Louisiana and sub-jurisdictions within the state received federal preclearance determination letters regarding potential voting rights violations in the triple digits before the Shelby decision.⁹⁰ Without preclearance safeguards, actions like redistricting plans and polling place relocations that were once reviewed and regulated have been enacted without hindrance.⁹¹

For example, while every map drawn during Louisiana’s redistricting processes following the 1970-2010 U.S. Censuses required preclearance review, not a single map was vetted by the federal government prior to enactment after the 2020 Census. Additionally, multiple voting rights restrictions have been enacted and even more have advanced through some part of the legislative process since 2013.⁹² “Every year that [it gets] harder for folks to access their vote…people [feel like] their vote and their voices don’t matter,” Ashley Shelton explained.⁹³

Following Shelby, Louisiana has manifested a trajectory where increased voting burdens have deflated hopes for fair representation in the political process. “Louisiana is one of the states that saw some of the biggest decreases in polling place access in the last decade as a result of Shelby County, and also still remains one of the states with some of the most significant voter registration barriers, with respect to voting for the first time and voting with the felony conviction,” said Valencia Richardson, a native Louisianian and voting rights attorney at the Campaign Legal Center.⁹⁴ Federal courts have also acknowledged the persistent forms of voter suppression that continue to burden Black voters post-Shelby. For example, a federal court in the Middle District of Louisiana held in 2014 that “Black voter suppression continues in the form of closing polling places, restricting access to polling places, restricting access to early voting, and limiting mail-in voting.”⁹⁵ The same court found “no evidence that violations of the [Voting Rights Act] are less prevalent than they were in the past decade. Instead, they may be less visible now with the elimination of federal oversight.”⁹⁶ These multi-fold barriers can help explain the inertia Black voters face in participating at each stage of the political process—from registration to early voting and Election Day, to political representation and continued civic mobilization.

i. Registration Processes

Even prior to Shelby, there was no system of automatic (nor same-day) voter registration in Louisiana, which is shown to increase both registration rates and voter participation.⁹⁷ Instead, Louisiana’s registration process involves separate and burdensome steps for different groups of voters based on whether they have a state-issued ID, as well as other considerations that correlate with race like former incarceration or disability.⁹⁸ “The process feels…very complicated,” said A’Niya Robinson, a former advocacy strategist with the ACLU of Louisiana, when describing her experiences working with voters to go through the registration form.⁹⁹ “It’s not easy to understand and, you know, if you’re working with folks that maybe don’t have as much formal education, you could see why it would feel very intimidating.”¹⁰⁰

The registration process itself can exclude voters from participation, as can the timing of deadlines. Louisiana maintains a voter registration deadline for in-person and by-mail registration at the maximum number of days prior to an election permitted under federal law—thirty days.¹⁰¹ While online registration is also permitted, it is limited to only those applicants who have a state-issued Louisiana driver’s license or special ID card.¹⁰² Louisianians with the requisite ID may register online twenty days prior to an election.¹⁰³ After that, there is no mechanism for nonregistered voters to register and participate. This disproportionately limits Black voters from registering because Black people are less likely to have a state-issued photo ID.¹⁰⁴

Voters who were once registered are also vulnerable to being flagged as inactive and ultimately purged from the voter rolls if they do not vote often enough or verify their address upon receiving an address confirmation card.¹⁰⁵ A voter who is registered but moved outside their parish more than three months prior to an election and neglected to update their registration is also denied the ability to vote on Election Day.¹⁰⁶ Racial disparities interplay with these voter registration policies, again, because Black people face higher barriers to permanent housing access due to economic inequities, patterns of segregation, and other factors, and may also face confusion about how these policies work in relation to their individual circumstances.¹⁰⁷

Registered voters who are convicted of a felony face additional hurdles when aiming to restore their voting rights—again, disproportionately impacting Black Louisianians who face higher rates of felony sentences than their white peers.¹⁰⁸ Although many previously registered voters with felony convictions are eligible to register to vote, Louisiana will not reactivate their registration without a multi-step process that is not similarly required for first-time registrants with a prior felony conviction.¹⁰⁹ The two-tiered system is currently being challenged in federal court as a violation of the National Voter Registration Act¹¹⁰ and bears particular significance to the voter turnout gap because of misunderstandings about the scope of disenfranchisement laws.¹¹¹ Keturah Butler-Reed described the confusion she witnesses when trying to register and turnout voters who think they do not qualify because of former convictions.¹¹² “[Y]ou have people who are previously incarcerated [with] the misunderstanding…and sometimes they just walk off.”¹¹³

While nonregistered voters may not be tallied in the turnout percentages recorded by the Secretary of State (though would be captured in analyses comparing racial voter turnout to the citizen voting age population), barriers to registration can still implicate the turnout gap by causing greater confusion overall, impeding some registered voters from participating as well. Indeed, barriers to registration not only limit the pool of potential voters but also exacerbate a culture of suppression that depletes voter morale—especially among communities that bear the greatest brunt of these hurdles. Facing both burdens and misinformation about registration requirements, civic organizations must expend extra effort to reach new registrants and pull them into the political process. “We’ve got to make [registration] a priority moving forward,” said Ashley Shelton, “so that no matter what is happening in the election cycle, there is the full strength of the Black voters of this state and the Black voting power of this state.”¹¹⁴

ii. Early and Absentee Voting Opportunities

Opportunities to vote prior to election days take two forms in Louisiana—in-person early voting, for which all voters are eligible,¹¹⁵ and absentee-by-mail voting, for which a limited number of voters qualify under set criteria.¹¹⁶ Both forms of early voting have increased in popularity in recent years,¹¹⁷ but continue to be marked by barriers and disparate rates of participation across racial groups.¹¹⁸

The majority of parishes in Louisiana only provide early voting at one location, the parish registrar of voters’ office.¹¹⁹ While the parish may provide alternative or additional locations, there is no requirement that the number of early voting locations corresponds to the parish’s population or that sites are equitably distributed based on the size or geography of the parish.¹²⁰ Under this discretionary system, voters have experienced inequitable access to early in-person voting statewide.¹²¹ For example, Caddo Parish, which has among the fewest number of early voting sites per voter with only two sites for over 152,000 voters, has a disproportionately high Black voting population at 47 percent of registered voters—well above the state’s roughly one-third Black voting population.¹²² Meanwhile, Cameron Parish has three early voting sites to serve its less than 4,500 voters—fewer than 90 of whom are Black (less than 2 percent).¹²³

Challenges to accessing early voting sites vary across communities. Rural voters are often forced to travel the longest distances to access a registrar of voters’ office in the parish seat, while voters near larger cities like Shreveport and New Orleans have faced long lines and congestion during the early voting period.¹²⁴ Both of these barriers are exacerbated in communities of color, where residential segregation patterns and inequities in transportation access compound. For example, lack of public transportation and less access to private vehicles in rural Black neighborhoods strains access, while long lines in urban hubs with larger Black populations burden working voters unable to commit to a multi-hour wait.

Meanwhile, opportunities to vote early by mail are also limited. To vote absentee by mail in Louisiana, voters must fit one of a narrow list of qualifications.¹²⁵ Qualifications to vote absentee by mail were temporary expanded due to a court order during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but still did not extend to universal vote-by-mail for all voters nor continue into following cycles.¹²⁶ This means that voters who have general conflicts or accessibility barriers to vote early or on Election Day in person have more limited means to participate, again interacting with socioeconomic disparities like limited access to flexible jobs and amplified instance of disability among Black Louisianians (including disabilities that may not qualify for absentee accommodations).¹²⁷

Limitations on voters’ agency and flexibility in deciding when to vote also exacerbate the disenfranchising risks of weather threats—a particularly critical concern in Louisiana. The state’s geography makes it uniquely vulnerable to climate threats, which disproportionately jeopardize communities of color.¹²⁸ In recent election cycles, natural disasters have struck near election days , in ways that threatened to jeopardize voting operations. For example, in 2020 Hurricane Zeta struck New Orleans just days before the presidential general election, right as the early voting period closed.¹²⁹ It was the strongest hurricane to ever hit New Orleans and left 1.5 million customers without power across the region.¹³⁰ In 2022, deadly tornadoes swept across the southeast region of the state just days after polls closed for the December general elections.¹³¹ Had either of these events occurred on Election Day, impacted voters who did not vote early would have been effectively disenfranchised.

Together, limiting both in-person early voting and absentee-by-mail opportunities restricts voters’ opportunities to participate when and how it is most feasible for them based on their individual circumstances. Where socioeconomic disparities disproportionately constrain Black voters’ flexibility in employment, transportation, and other factors, these restrictions compound to deflate turnout and drive the turnout gap.

iii. Poll Site Access

Between 2012 and 2018, parish governments closed a total of 126 polling places, according to a study from the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights.¹³² When factoring temporary relocations, consolidations, and other changes beyond permanent closures, Louisiana has changed many more hundreds of polling locations in recent years, risking voter confusion.¹³³ Many of these location shifts have been concentrated in Black communities, sometimes adding significant distance to access relocated sites.¹³⁴ The lack of access to polling sites compounds the potentially disenfranchising effects of other state policies, like Louisiana’s requirement that most first-time voters cast their ballot in person.¹³⁵ “Voters of color, especially Black voters, have less access to in-person voting,” Valencia Richardson explained, “Per registered voter, there are just fewer polling places assigned to more voters, more Black voters in Louisiana. And so, when you’re trying to vote for the first time, you have to vote in person. That disparate impact for voting in person creates sort of a double barrier.”¹³⁶

Jordan Braithwaite, a graduate of Grambling State University and former president of the Louisiana NAACP Youth and College Division, described the challenges students on her campus faced in voting and organizing their peers to vote, as well, after a polling site on campus was closed following her first year on campus.¹³⁷ She recounted that despite it being a pandemic, students were not able to ignore the election because the polling site was right there during her first election at school.¹³⁸ “It was so accessible to them,”¹³⁹ but then it closed without explanation.¹⁴⁰ “You can’t [ignore it] when it’s something that close to you.”¹⁴¹

Louisiana NAACP President Michael McClanahan also echoed the importance of poll site access and highlighted the challenges that voters face if they work across town or have their polling place changed without sufficient notice to further distances.¹⁴² These challenges are exacerbated by the fact that Louisiana does not provide voting centers like some counties in neighboring Texas, where voters from the county can vote at the location most convenient and accessible to them on Election Day, rather than being required to vote at the polling place assigned to their home precinct.¹⁴³ President McClanahan, who served on the Voting Systems Commission created by an act of the State Legislature in 2021 to study new voting technology solutions for the state,¹⁴⁴ noted that the technology exists to accommodate these vote centers in Louisiana since machines used during in-person early voting already allow voters from any part of a parish to vote at a centralized location.¹⁴⁵ “Why can’t we have the same stuff in place that we have when it’s early voting? I can go to the clerk’s office, put my ID in and the ballot would go to my area. On Election Day, you know, [if] I’m across town, I gotta come back across town to vote,” he said.¹⁴⁶ “We have to bring access to voting up and with the times.”¹⁴⁷

Even if polling places are not physically distant, structural concerns can still make them inaccessible for many voters. “Most of the places that are often used as polling sites, they’re…just not accessible [for people] who may have…different exceptionalities,” explained A’Niya Robinson.¹⁴⁸ “You have people being disenfranchised in ways that have nothing to do with what the law is, but because of an impact of election administration,” explained Ashley Shelton, who served on Louisiana’s Disability Voting Task Force established in 2022.¹⁴⁹ After teaming up with allied organizations in voting rights and accessibility advocacy to pass a resolution to create the Task Force in 2022,¹⁵⁰ Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and partners advanced a successful omnibus bill calling for greater accessibility in election administration and leadership from directly impacted voters in solution-making.¹⁵¹ Another bill that would have provided for similar representation and expertise on the State Board of Election Supervisors died in the House the same year,¹⁵² carrying on a pattern in the Louisiana Legislature of undervaluing the barriers faced by voters with disabilities, who are disproportionately Black,¹⁵³ at all levels of election administration.¹⁵⁴

When voting sites are distant, inaccessible, or unwelcoming, the voting process becomes exclusionary—especially for the communities with the least access to resources that can bridge gaps in access. Barriers to the ballot thus amplify for Black communities.

iv. Frequency and Timing of Elections

Louisiana hosts at least four elections per year—and often more.¹⁵⁵ In her decades of service in election administration, Louisiana Commissioner of Elections Sherri Hadskey recalls administering over a dozen elections in a single year.¹⁵⁶ The frequency of elections is due in part to the disaggregation of key municipal, state, and federal election cycles, as well as discrete instances of special elections, which can be triggered by office vacancies and other actions.¹⁵⁷ Currently, Louisiana uses an open primary system (known colloquially as the unique “Cajun” or “jungle” primary) for most contests, though multiple contests are set to shift to a closed primary system in 2026.¹⁵⁸ Except for presidential elections, under Louisiana’s current election model, there are no partisan primaries and, instead, candidates for the same position enter a primary race after which the two highest vote earners advance to a general election (or “runoff”) if no single candidate achieves more than fifty percent of the total votes cast.¹⁵⁹ There is no write-in option. This means that if only one candidate enters a primary, that election is canceled, and the single contestant wins outright. In a multi-candidate primary, if one candidate successfully earns over 50 percent of the votes cast, then the runoff election is canceled.

Because of the unique open primary model and election timing, the races that align with presidential general elections nationwide on the first Tuesday of November are inconsistent with most voting models across the country—i.e., except for president, the election is merely a primary that may still trigger a runoff in December.¹⁶⁰ The November primary/December runoff timing in federal election cycles runs counter to gubernatorial elections, when the primaries are held in October and runoffs fall in November.¹⁶¹ Alignment with the federal cycle can also dictate the day of the week of the election,¹⁶² duration of early voting,¹⁶³ and availability of early voting locations.¹⁶⁴ For example, Louisiana elections are generally held on Saturdays but fall on the first Tuesday of November when the rest of the nation is voting in federal cycles held every other year.¹⁶⁵

Louisiana’s unique election calendar also creates conflicts with cultural events and traditions. While Saturday elections can increase access for some voters who balance work, schooling, and home responsibilities during a prototypical Tuesday election, in Louisiana, Saturday elections can also clash with valued hometown traditions—ranging from football games and homecoming to annual carnival celebrations leading up to Mardi Gras. For example, in 2023, the gubernatorial primary election fell on the same Saturday as homecoming celebrations at both Grambling State University and Southern University—two of the state’s largest Historically Black Colleges and Universities (“HBCUs”).¹⁶⁶ The January 2023 special election for House District 93 fell on the same day as carnival celebrations in an area of New Orleans where the parade was hosted near polling sites.¹⁶⁷ Keturah Butler-Reed described another experience distributing voter materials during an election that aligned with a parade, seeing people standing on the roof of a polling place to watch the parade but not going in to vote inside.¹⁶⁸

In Louisiana, where something is always “in season”—whether its hurricanes, football, the holidays, or Mardi Gras—it is hard to avoid timing conflicts when elections happen every quarter, if not every month. In 2020, then-Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin lamented the challenges for election administration in the holiday season.¹⁶⁹ “December elections are almost becoming impossible,” he testified to the Louisiana Committee on House and Governmental Affairs.¹⁷⁰ “We’re competing with Amazon and FedEx to get trucks [for machine distribution].”¹⁷¹ But for few exceptions, these strains are a uniquely Louisianian predicament—in most states, the voting process wraps up before Thanksgiving without the need for a general election runoff.¹⁷² Still, less challenging alternative dates are not easy to come by in the state. “Unless we decide to move all our elections to the spring, we’re always going to be in hurricane season, and from everything I read, it’s not necessarily going to get any better. It’s only going to get worse,” Ardoin continued.¹⁷³ “So we need to take that into consideration as we’re making reforms… There’s no words to describe to you how difficult it was …to overcome the effects of Hurricane Ida,” he explained.¹⁷⁴ “Within a few days of the election, we were still trying to find trucks to be able to deliver our voting machines.”¹⁷⁵

The endless cycle of elections also drains resources from the state, as well as coordinated political campaigns and nonpartisan efforts to mobilize voters. Efforts to change voting policies in recent years have provided a lens into the costs of administering additional elections. For example, legislation passed in January 2024 to switch to a closed primary system for select seats by 2026 (which could add additional runoff election dates) came with anticipated expenses ranging from $9,553,570 to $17,560,692.¹⁷⁶

A federal court recently cited Louisiana’s “repeated and voluminous decentralized elections” among “voting practices or procedures that may enhance the opportunity for discrimination against the minority group.”¹⁷⁷ The court cited Louisiana’s dueling gubernatorial and federal election cycles and packed election calendars as evidence of racial vote dilution.¹⁷⁸ “[C]onsistent with the testimony of voters,” the court found “this type of calendar of elections breeds voter fatigue and confusion, which is amplified in poor and under educated communities.¹⁷⁹ This finding is consistent with how other federal courts have assessed disaggregated election calendars across the country.¹⁸⁰ While it is hard to identify dates free from recurring conflicts or vulnerability of disruption, Louisiana’s misalignment and endless recurrence of elections only exacerbates that challenge. The state’s varying election timing policies mean that Louisiana voters face frequent and inconsistent elections that make it hard to limit variables when comparing turnout gaps in one cycle and another—and perhaps even harder for a voter to navigate the process, in general.

B. Barriers to Representation: Politics, Disinvestment, and Dilution

Even when Black voters can clear the hurdles presented throughout each step of the voting process, from registration through Election Day, other political dynamics continue to impact their access to both substantive and descriptive representation. Patterns of racially polarized voting (“RPV”) have entrenched the white voting majority’s political power and fueled political polarization in elections and policymaking. A repeated history of redistricting processes producing maps that dilute Black voters’ political power has further narrowed pipelines to political representation. Where Black voters face limited opportunities to elect their candidates of choice, it is challenging for organizers to convince them that their votes matter.

i. Political Polarization and Primary Design

In Louisiana, race and party affiliation are highly correlated. Patterns of stark and consistent RPV have been long acknowledged in public commentary, substantiated in expert analysis, and accepted as evidence in recent court findings.¹⁸¹ While not monolithic, white Louisianians tend to vote for modern Republicans and Black Louisianians tend to vote for Democrats, according to these reports.¹⁸² In the present open primary system, candidates of the same party can advance to a runoff or there can be no runoff needed at all if one candidate can achieve over 50 percent of the vote share. These trends and policies can lead to a lack of competition, especially at statewide or district-level races where one party dominates the voting base and opposing party candidates opt not to run at all.¹⁸³ This, in part, has contributed to a lack of descriptive representation for Black Louisianians in campaigns and elected office.¹⁸⁴

Despite John Bel Edwards’ success running as a Democrat for Governor in 2015 and 2019, it has been otherwise exceedingly difficult for Democrats to win statewide in Louisiana in recent years.¹⁸⁵ And a Black person—Democrat or Republican—has never won a race for U.S. Senate, nor for Governor or Lieutenant Governor since at least Reconstruction, if ever.¹⁸⁶ In a post-election interview, Sean Wilson, a Black Democrat who came second to Jeff Landry in the 2023 race for Governor but failed to force a runoff, theorized about some of the structural and social barriers impeding the success of his campaign. Implicitly citing the Louisiana’s unique open primary model, he stated, “I think people had a foregone conclusion that every Democrat makes it to the runoff when that is absolutely not the case when you’ve got other voters more energized and engaged than you.”¹⁸⁷ Other community advocates echoed hearing this confusion among voters. M. Christian Green described responses she and other phone bankers got from potential voters during GOTV efforts leading up to the October 2023 primaries.¹⁸⁸ “We started to hear things, like, ‘Oh, I’m going to vote in the November election because that’s the ‘real’ election.’”¹⁸⁹ Yet the gubernatorial race failed to even produce a runoff, so those voters lost an opportunity to weigh in.¹⁹⁰ Landry won outright with over f50 percent of the vote share, cancelling the need for a runoff race at the top of the ticket.¹⁹¹

ii. Campaign Disinvestment

Due to the trends in race and partisan alignment highlighted above, Black voters face the brunt of disinvestment and mismanagement from the Democratic Party, which can create inertia against narrowing the turnout gap. In 2023, many public commentators pointed blame at leadership within the Democratic Party for the dismal turnout, especially among Black voters. “They did not have a get-out-the-vote operation,” noted Professor Robert Collins.¹⁹² “They did not have any sort of structure to get their message out. They did not have any structure to transport voters to the polls. It’s just staggering.”¹⁹³ Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, a Black Democrat who defeated another incumbent Black Democrat in a majority-Black district the prior year, echoed criticism of party leadership, who he claimed spent the campaign season “self-brandishing” rather than building campaign infrastructure.¹⁹⁴ “Part of the problem is Democratic leaders here always make deals with the Republicans to protect themselves at the [expense of] the best interests of the people of Louisiana.”¹⁹⁵

The disparities in resources allocated across parties during the 2023 gubernatorial and down-ballot campaigns were stark. In the September 2023 campaign finance reporting period alone, the Landry campaign outspent Wilson’s campaign seven-fold.¹⁹⁶ Representative Mandie Landry, a white incumbent Democratic from New Orleans who successfully defended her seat after facing primary opposition supported by the state party, highlighted the failed investments of party leadership.¹⁹⁷ “It’s one thing for them to get involved in my race uselessly,” she said. “But for them to not pay any attention to the gubernatorial race is political malpractice.”¹⁹⁸

Commissioner Lewis scathingly rebutted the notion that Black voters were to blame for Democratic candidates’ lack of success in the 2023 elections, flipping the script to highlight how politics have worked to undermine Black voters’ power.¹⁹⁹ “We are asking for the people that have been harming us and stopping our movement to get out of the way, because you can’t complain one day that Black voters didn’t turn out, and then you directly harm these same groups who are doing that [mobilization] on the ground,” he said.²⁰⁰ “If you don’t want to be part of the process of building Black political power, get out of our way so we can keep doing that work.”²⁰¹

M. Christian Green noted more universal observations of disinvestment, describing only seeing a handful of signs for any candidates when driving through multiple parishes on Election Day in October 2023.²⁰² She saw a few signs for local legislative races and some for Jeff Landry—but that was it.²⁰³ “It was as if there were no statewide races going on and, for me, that was a real concern.”²⁰⁴ When parties fail to invest in outreach efforts, voters are left with little insight or incentive to turnout. Indeed, Black Louisianians may be lost deepest in this information void

iii. Racial Appeals

Like past election cycles, the 2023 elections contained both overt and subtle racial appeals, where imagery and narratives were used in campaign advertisements to evoke racial resentment.²⁰⁵ Governor Landry’s campaign released multiple advertisements critiquing “woke” politics and curricula and perpetuating hard-on-crime narratives that invoked tropes of Black criminality.²⁰⁶ In one instance, a set of advertisements flashed images of local Black elected officials and prosecutors while leaving out similar images of white prosecutors from different media markets in the state.²⁰⁷ In the midst of the following 2024 federal elections, incumbent candidate Congressman Clay Higgins tweeted an “overtly racist” comment about Haitian immigrants, employing stereotypes and threatening that they should leave the country before the presidential inauguration.²⁰⁸ Studies have shown that the use of racial campaign appeals such as these has a particularly demobilizing impact on Black voters, while not having the same negative impact on white voter participation.²⁰⁹

Where Louisiana’s politics remain largely racially polarized, the tactics employed across parties bear unique weight in explaining the turnout gap. In 2023, for example, there were compounding dynamics to discourage Black voter turnout: the dominant political party, Republicans, invested resources in racial campaign appeals while the political party that Black voters most consistently align with, the Democrats, was effectively missing in action—if not actively working against the interests of Black voters. And while 2023 marked “rock bottom”²¹⁰ for Louisiana’s Democratic Party apparatus, lower turnout trends by race and party persisted into 2024.²¹¹ Meanwhile, national narratives highlighted shifting support among Black voters, particularly men, to the Republican Party.²¹² How and if both parties in Louisiana will respond to these lessons and trends through investment in outreach and turnout in Black communities is yet to be seen, but could influence the trajectory of the turnout gap moving forward.

iv. Redistricting and Vote Dilution

Louisiana’s electoral maps have been marked by decades of legal challenges. Despite comprising roughly one-third of the state’s population, Black Louisianians have been underrepresented in political districts at the municipal, state, and federal level.²¹³ For decades, the sole majority-Black congressional district persisted only due to litigation in the 1980s.²¹⁴ The second district was only enacted by the Louisiana Legislature after years of federal litigation following the 2020 Census, and swiftly faced new legal challenges.²¹⁵

While the future of Louisiana’s congressional map remained in flux, the 2024 election provided a brief insight into how turnout among Black voters is tied to the hope of electing a candidate of their choice. Compared to most, if not all, the majority-white districts, the turnout gap was lower in Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional districts in 2024.²¹⁶ Calculating turnout as a percentage of registered voters, the turnout gap was smaller in majority-Black districts, CD-2 and CD-6, than in majority-white districts CD-3, CD-4, and CD-5, only riveled by the low margin between turnout rates in CD-1.²¹⁷ However, calculating turnout disparities based on citizen voting age population (“CVAP”) eliminates this advantage in CD-1, leaving the two majority-Black districts as the sites of the lowest racial turnout disparities.²¹⁸

Figure 1: Racial Turnout Disparities in the 2024 Congressional Elections

*Denotes a majority-Black congressional district, drawn following federal Voting Rights Act litigation.

The opportunity to assess the future impacts of Black opportunity districts more broadly on the turnout gap remains a fluctuating target in Louisiana. Decades of litigation to establish and defend representation for Black voters have defined the history of the state’s Supreme Court districts, which only recently gained a second majority-Black district in 2024,²¹⁹ though the election to fill that seat was ultimately uncontested in 2024.²²⁰ And state legislative maps passed in 2022 were struck down as violations of the Voting Rights Act, but only after elections were held on the dilutive districts that secured a conservative supermajority in 2023.²²¹ As of this writing, an appeal remains pending.²²²

Dilutive districts have long diminished Black voting power and, in Louisiana, have exacerbated patterns of noncompetitive elections. The political maps passed following the 2020 Census not only signaled a political system designed to dilute Black voters’ power but also led to a stark lack of competition. In the following races, over 40 percent of state legislative seats in 2023 were decided with no election because candidates, often the incumbents who redrew their own districts, faced no opponents.²²³ Fewer contests on the ballot depleted “Get Out the Vote” (“GOTV”) resources. With limited district elections and fewer candidates running their own operations, more resources were required from centralized party operations and statewide campaigns, but few were provided—especially from the progressive political establishment.²²⁴

The federal court in the challenge to Louisiana’s state legislative districts cited testimony from multiple plaintiffs about how the dilution of Black voters’ strength in their legislative districts has “resulted in noncompetitive [elections] and little interest and attention from candidates in the Black community.”²²⁵ The Court noted state lawmakers’ lack of responsiveness to the needs of Black constituents, citing testimony from Omari Ho-Sang on behalf of Black Voters Matter – Louisiana, an organizational plaintiff.²²⁶ Specifically, Ho-Sang spoke to lawmakers’ failure to advance policies to improve Black people’s lives, which, she said, was “evidenced in the conditions in our community.”²²⁷

Where dilutive districts undermine Black voters’ hopes that they can elect their preferred candidates or count on elected officials to advocate for their needs, convincing would-be voters that the effort to vote is worth their time can become a futile task. Indeed, diluting Black communities’ voting strength through discriminatory redistricting dilutes voter turnout.

In Louisiana, barriers to the ballot compound with barriers to representation in ways that together fuel the turnout gap. Across each stage of the political process, distinct factors each drive the turnout gap, mixing to sustain a system that deprives Black communities of equal access to the political process. Addressing the sum of these barriers is necessary to chart a new path forward.

V. A Path Forward

Solutions for the turnout gap must be as comprehensive as its driving forces. Continued research and cross-state analysis may help to further identify areas for reform in Louisiana. In the interim, this paper primarily draws from the wisdom of Louisianians themselves to identify opportunities for intervention. Advocacy leaders working on the ground make clear that the need for multi-tactic solutions derived in legislative chambers, on the ground, and in the courts are urgently needed to narrow the turnout gap.

A. Policy and Administrative Solutions

At the state and federal level, there are numerous potential policy interventions to match the driving forces behind the turnout gap—from discrete administrative solutions to more systemic election reforms. However, policy priorities to reduce inequitable access to the political process cannot be limited to voting system reforms alone. Civic participation is directly correlated to other determinants of opportunity and social wellbeing.²²⁸ Moving towards greater equality in education, employment, and health determinants is a step towards narrowing the turnout gap and ensuring elections better reflect the views of the full populace. Through this framing, policies including shifting the federal or state minimum wage, for example, can and should be reframed as pro-democracy reforms.²²⁹ Indeed, a voting rights agenda that includes narrowing the turnout gap must be coupled with broader efforts to dismantle socioeconomic inequities.

Still, voting rights policy changes at the federal level are ripe for action. Proactive federal policy reforms in line with those proposed in the Freedom to Vote Act,²³⁰ for example, could dramatically expand voting access and reduce burdens that exacerbate disparities in turnout. Passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act could also help undue some of the harm of the Shelby County v. Holder decision and ensure that future threats to voting access are met with proactive safeguards.²³¹

On the state level, ambitious policy reforms could prompt sweeping change. Local advocates highlighted the hope that reforms like automatic voter registration could bring for improving voter mobilization, while acknowledging the uphill battle to achieve such a progressive policy reform in Louisiana’s conservative legislature.²³² Election alignment also topped the list of policy priorities, though efforts to comprehensively review ways to streamline elections and improve turnout have faced past resistance in the state legislature.²³³ Research shows that November elections that are aligned with the federal cycle generally double local voter turnout compared to standalone local contests.²³⁴ Moving to on-cycle elections can also lead to more representative voter turnout, especially when aligned with presidential years.²³⁵ With an anticipated shift to closed party primaries in 2026 for some elections, election alignment is critical not only to address voter confusion, but could also be framed as a fiscal responsibility mandate. Fewer elections with higher turnout could both lessen election expenses and reduce the turnout gap by consolidating resources, increasing access to information, and reducing voter fatigue.²³⁶

While recent years have led to incremental improvements in the availability of voting opportunities beyond election days, there is more room for progress. Following the success of expanded early voting opportunities by court order during the pandemic in 2020, legislation was filed in 2021 to extend early voting days permanently.²³⁷ Legislators rejected the opportunity to increase early voting days for all elections, but enacted Act 365 to add an additional three days of early voting to presidential general elections.²³⁸ The 2024 elections provided the first opportunity to measure the success of this policy, which revealed high levels of participation but persistent racial disparities in engagement.²³⁹ While further efforts to expand early voting have been met with increasing resistance, reforms to ensure that voting opportunities are not confined to a single date or limited locations—especially those distant from Black communities—remain needed.²⁴⁰

Regarding voting opportunities on election days, there are already strong policy protections in the Voting Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and other state and federal laws mandating poll site accessibility.²⁴¹ However, these protections are not uniformly enforced in practice and have been vulnerable to weakening in the courts.²⁴² It is critical that policies to improve access to, and experiences at, polling sites are clearly outlined in training for election workers to ensure voters don’t have to “brace themselves” for negative experiences at the polls, Ashley Shelton said.²⁴³ Moreover, to this day, many of the promises made during the meetings of the Disability Voting Task Force in 2022 and the passage of Act 277 in 2023, an omnibus voting accessibility bill, have not yet been realized by election officials.²⁴⁴ Policy advancements to expand voting access and reduce the turnout gap must thus be met with continued accountability efforts to compel enforcement.

B. Organizing and Communications

Community organizing, public education, and messaging campaigns are essential for voters to fully realize their rights following the success of any policy reforms or court wins. The necessity to utilize diverse and catered messages to engage voters echoed throughout the insights from leaders on the ground in Louisiana. Keturah Butler-Reed emphasized the importance of “creating a strategy specifically based off of the demographics and the audiences,”²⁴⁵ which was reiterated by other leaders who highlighted the need to meet voters where they are.²⁴⁶ “We’re just such a segmented public…you have to sort of find out what works for the target audience,” M. Christian Green explained, highlighting how digital campaigns to reach young voters should be balanced with radio or other strategies to reach rural Black communities with limited access to broadband.²⁴⁷

A’Niya Robinson described her own programming efforts at the ACLU of Louisiana to narrow gaps in civic engagement in rural communities by investing in the homegrown leaders who have been carrying out the work locally, despite limited resources. [T] here’s a financial support component [and] there’s also a partnership component, where we take the relationships…and we leverage them.” As the program reached its fourth cohort, Robinson reflected, “It’s just been very, very beautiful.”²⁴⁸

Jordan Braithwaite echoed similar needs for targeted investment from resourced organizations in young voters particularly. “It’s so vital to have the resources that have been given by [civil rights and civic engagement organizations] because we’re able to take the translated messages already there…a synopsis of something big [and] pass along that same message, but in the way that the youth can translate it.”²⁴⁹ She further emphasized the need to engage a rising generation of voters on a peer-to-peer basis.²⁵⁰ “It’s always a little struggle for me to really research and find people that are college students or even younger that are doing this work,” she explained.²⁵¹ “So I think if we showcase that and highlight that more, it would encourage students to not sit around and wait for tomorrow to come, but to realize that tomorrow is today, and that we have to step up and take back our power now and not wait.”²⁵² President McClanahan of the Louisiana NAACP spoke to the importance of building a pipeline and supporting groups like the NAACP’s Youth and College Divisions for the future of mobilization work. “A lot of young people [have been] excluded…from the process,” he said, “That’s why I’m engaged with them…I provide the resources for them because I know my time is limited.”²⁵³

In addition to the messaging advanced directly by civic organizations, M. Christian Green emphasized the need to connect with reporters around the substance of media narratives leading up to election days to avoid messages that deter participation. “There is a lot of horse race journalism,” she explained, where headlines focus on who is ahead and how much money they have rather than describing who the candidates are and what they stand for.²⁵⁴ She advised producing best practice guidance for journalists to provide warnings regarding the deterring effects of media coverage that makes the outcome of elections sound preordained before Election Day. “If you know that there seems to be a clear winner then you know why, why go out and vote?”²⁵⁵

Despite the challenges, advocates agreed that there are ample opportunities to reach voters and expand the electorate if resources and time are invested strategically. Valencia Richardson recalled her own experiences getting into disagreements with folks who rejected the idea that voting matters, “but…that was not the vast majority,” she said.²⁵⁶ Most people she engaged with signaled an interest in voting, “but [a] lack of thinking about the process, or interest, and lack of awareness of their rights.”²⁵⁷ “It’s not apathy,” she said, “and I think it’s important to know that because if it’s not apathy, then that means we can intervene.”²⁵⁸ Commissioner Davante Lewis, who also formerly served as Chief Strategy Officer for Invest in Louisiana (formerly Louisiana Budget Project), a progressive public policy nonprofit, argued that the work of rebuilding Black political infrastructure in Louisiana starts with investing in the groups that have been doing that work already.²⁵⁹ “I would tell people stay connected with Louisiana Budget Project, Invest in Louisiana Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, V.O.T.E. We are organizations that have been on the ground doing this work, building these coalitions, having these town halls. And we are more committed now than ever.”²⁶⁰

C. Legal Interventions

Legal intervention provides a safeguard for when policy and organizing solutions reach limitations—and vice versa. As of this writing, multiple cases remain pending that could shift opportunities to build political power and opportunity for Black voters. If favorably, the outcome of lawsuits regarding the congressional and state legislative maps could provide Black voters with renewed opportunities to elect their candidates of choice.²⁶¹ The outcome in V.O.T.E. v. Landry could clear further barriers for voters who are aiming to reregister following incarceration.²⁶² And future litigation could clear further barriers to ballot access, such as challenges to enforce accessibility laws or creative efforts to address the disparate impact of off-cycle elections. Each litigation strategy has the potential to prompt change that renews Black voter opportunity and enthusiasm, fueling turnout. Moreover, any wins in litigation can trigger new urgency for organizing efforts to inform voters of their rights and new opportunities for mobilization. They would also create opportunities for further research to explore the impact of the changing political landscape on the turnout gap moving forward.

D. Future Research

Opportunities to assess the outcomes of policy, organizing, and legal interventions in the years ahead will provide areas of future research on what efforts move the needle on turnout—in one direction or another. For example, as of this writing, it is still uncharted whether new opportunity districts in the state legislature, if enacted and upheld, may help drive increased turnout in future state legislative races as they appeared to in the recent congressional elections.²⁶³ At the same time, newer leadership in the legislative and executive branches elected in 2023 means that voter suppression efforts stifled by the veto pen of the previous Governor may now take hold,²⁶⁴ while some already have.²⁶⁵ And the shift to closed-party primaries for some, but not all, offices on the ballot starting in 2026 may lead to more election dates and varying rates of participation.²⁶⁶ It is hard to predict how exactly these variables and other factors may impact voter turnout as a whole or the gap across racial groups, specifically. Each element renews the need for continued research and creative advocacy interventions.

Beyond research tied to changes to policy and legal landscapes in Louisiana, future research may also expand upon methodologies to understand turnout trends and voter behavior today. Focus groups, surveys, and further data analysis may help better diagnose the driving forces of Louisiana’s turnout gap and prescribe the policy, legal, and organizing solutions to narrow it. Additional interviews with impacted voters and community leaders can also continually build upon the expertise and innovative thinking applied to address the turnout gap. In the meantime, a multi-tactic approach to advocacy remains as necessary as ever to discover solutions for the turnout gap and provide Black Louisianians with incentive and support to “geaux vote.”

APPENDIX

LOUISIANA ELECTION TURNOUT DATA²⁶⁷

Gubernatorial Cycle October Election Turnout

Election Year	Total Turnout %	White Turnout %	Black Turnout %	Turnout Gap %
1999	48.78	51.59	44.81	6.78
2003	50.39	53.94	44.90	9.04
2007	46.62	52.24	36.79	15.45
2011	37.43	41.47	31.43	10.04
2015	39.2	42.34	35.22	7.12
2019	45.9	49.97	40.35	9.62
2023	36.31	41.57	28.84	12.73

Presidential Cycle November Election Turnout

Election Year	Total Turnout %	White Turnout %	Black Turnout %	Turnout Gap %
2000	63.51	66.60	58.36	8.24
2004	66.93	70.40	61.11	9.29
2008	67.23	69.46	64.64	4.82
2012	67.93	69.36	67.19	2.17
2016	67.79	71.47	62.04	9.43
2020	70.14	74.47	63.09	11.38
2024	66.35	72.07	57.24	14.83

Gubernatorial Cycle November Election Turnout

Election Year	Total Turnout %	White Turnout %	Black Turnout %	Turnout Gap %
1999	29.28	33.06	22.15	10.91
2003	50.87	54.35	45.36	8.99
2007	26.39	30.22	19.73	10.49
2011	22.45	25.17	18.40	6.77
2015	40.19	41.92	38.91	3.01
2019	51.05	52.75	50.24	2.51
2023	23.09	26.81	17.77	9.04

Presidential Cycle December Election Turnout

Election Year	Total Turnout %	White Turnout %	Black Turnout %	Turnout Gap %
2000	25.49	27.68	14.06	13.62
2004	23.54	28.98	15.38	13.60
2008	20.30	24.51	16.74	7.77
2012	15.74	17.93	12.72	5.21
2016	29.46	32.13	25.74	6.39
2020	16.99	17.22	17.79	-0.57
2024	11.23	11.90	10.84	1.06

TRENDS IN TURNOUT IN GUBERNATORIAL CYCLE YEARS

TRENDS IN TURNOUT IN PRESIDENTIAL CYCLE YEARS

*Victoria (Tori) Wenger is an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), and counsel in multiple prior and pending voting rights cases in Louisiana. Tori is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of New York University School of Law and Harvard University. Special gratitude is owed to the civic leaders who were interviewed for the paper, including Jordan Braithwaite, Keturah Butler-Reed, M. Christian Green, Michael McClanahan, Valencia Richardson, A’Niya Robinson, and Ashley K. Shelton. Gratitude is also due to Meghan Brooks, Amir Badat, Emmanuelle Copeland, Dr. Bernard Fraga, Adam Lioz, Dr. Kesha Moore, Stuart Naifeh, Deuel Ross, Sam Spital, and Brenda Wright for practical and/or editing support. All views and errors are the author’s own. An earlier version of this paper was presented at The Racial Turnout Gap in the 21st Century convening hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law in March 2024.

References:

1
See Post-Election Statistics – Statewide, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/PostElectionStatisticsStatewide.aspx (last visited Feb. 13, 2024); see also Election Results 2023: Lowest Turnout in More than 20 Years, KATC (Oct. 18. 2023), https://www.katc.com/news/covering-louisiana/election-results-2023-lowest-turnout-in-more-than-20-years.
2
Post-Election Statistics – Statewide, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/PostElectionStatisticsStatewide.aspx (last visited Feb. 13, 2024).
3
Id.
4
Id.
5
Id.; see also WBRZ Staff, Voter turnout for amendments was less than 11 percent; lowest on record for current constitution, WBRZ (Dec. 11, 2024), https://www.wbrz.com/news/voter-turnout-for-amendments-was-less-than-11-percent-lowest-on-record-for-current-constitution.
6
See, e.g., Bernard Fraga, The Turnout Gap Between Whites and Racial Minorities Is Larger Than You Think — and Hard to Change, Wash. Post (Sept. 25, 2018) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/09/25/the-turnout-gap-between-whites-and-racial-minorities-is-larger-than-you-think-and-hard-to-change/; see also Will Wilder, Voter Suppression in 2020, Brennan Ctr. (Aug. 20, 2021), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voter-suppression-2020#:~:text=The%20white%E2%80%94non-white%20turnout%20gap%20in%202020%20was%2012.5,a%20recent%20low%20of%208%20percent%20in%202012; Kevin Morris & Cory Grange, Large Racial Turnout Gap Persisted in 2020 Election, Brennan Ctr. (Aug. 6, 2021), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/large-racial-turnout-gap-persisted-2020-election.
7
Compare Louisiana’s 32.8% “Black or African American alone” population according to the U.S. Census Bureau is only surpassed by Mississippi with 37.8%, with Louisiana, U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/LA/RHI225222#RHI225222 (last accessed Feb. 21, 2024); see also QuickFacts: Mississippi, U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/MS/PST045222 (last accessed Feb. 21, 2024).
8
See, e.g., Equality, U.S. News and World Rep., https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/opportunity/equality (last visited Mar. 4, 2024); see also Louisiana, U.S. News and World Rep. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/louisiana.
9
See infra section II.
10
Jurisdictions Previously Covered By Section 5, U.S. Dep’t of Just., https://www.justice.gov/crt/jurisdictions-previously-covered-section-5.
11
See infra sections IV(a).
12
See Adam Kuckuk, Odd Ones Out: Just 4 States Hold Off-Year Elections, Nat’l Conf. of State Legislatures (Oct. 25, 2023), https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/odd-ones-out-just-4-states-hold-off-year-elections.
13
While some other states utilize an open primary system, Louisiana’s model differs is distinguishable in several ways including the opportunity for a candidate to win outright in the primary and/or the nonpartisan system. See, e.g., Cajun primary, Ballotopedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Cajun_primary (last accessed Mar. 4, 2024).
14
See, e.g., Sebastian Garmann, Election Frequency, Choice Fatigue, and Voter Turnout, 47 Eur. J. of Pol. Econ. 19 (2017), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176268016303263.
15
See infra section IV(a)(iv).
16
See infra section II.
17
See, e.g., Robinson v. Ardoin, 605 F. Supp. 3d 759, 766 (M.D. La. 2022); Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808 860 (M.D. La. 2024). Author is counsel for Plaintiffs in both matters.
18
Nairne, 715 F. Supp. 3d at 863.
19
Id. at 875.
20
See infra section III.
21
See infra sections IV(b).
22
See Ardoin v. Robinson, 142 S. Ct. 2892 (2022) (holding the challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in abeyance pending the outcome of a similar challenge to Alabama’s congressional map).
23
See Nairne v. Ardoin, No. 22-CV-178-SDD-SDJ, 2022 WL 3756195, at *2 (M.D. La. Aug. 30, 2022) (granting a stay in the challenge to Louisiana’s state legislative maps under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in abeyance pending the outcome of a similar challenge to Alabama’s congressional map).
24
Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP v. Louisiana, No. 3:19-cv-00479 (M.D. La. 2019), appeal docketed,Allen v. Louisiana, No. 20-CV-30734 (5^th Cir. 2020).
25
The 2022 and 2023 federal and state election cycles occurred during the pendency of redistricting challenges.
26
See infra section IV(b)(iv).
27
See, e.g., Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, & Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics Harv. Univ. Press, 298-303 (1995) (Discussing how resources like money, time, and civic skills vary in their availability to groups defined by their income, education, occupation, race or ethnicity, gender, and religion in ways that impact political participation).
28
Id.
29
See U.S. News and World Rep., supra note 8.
30
S. Rep. No. 97-417, at 28-9 (1982).
31
Id. at n.114 (citing e.g., White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 768 (1973) & Kirksey v. Board of Supervisors, 554 F.2d 139, 145 (1977)).
32
Id.
33
See, e.g., Yeaji Kim, Absolutely Relative: How Education Shapes Voter Turnout in the United States, 168 Soc. Indicators Rsch. 447–69 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-023-03146-1.
34
See, e.g., Randall Akee, Voting and Income, EconoFact (Feb. 7, 2019), https://econofact.org/voting-and-income.
35
Justin de Benedictis-Kessner & Maxwell Palmer, Driving Turnout: The Effect of Car Ownership on Electoral Participation, Faculty Research Working Paper Series(Oct. 20, 2020), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3714420 (finding “[l]ack of access to a car depresses election day voter turnout by substantively large amounts across a variety of fixed-effects models that account for other environmental and voter characteristics.”).
36
See Verba, Lehman Schlozman, & Brady, supra note 27.
37
Jacob Fabina and Zachary Scherer, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2020: Population Characteristics, U.S. Census Bur., 17 (Jan. 2022), https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2022/demo/p20-585.pdf.
38
See, e.g., Lisa Schur & Douglas Kruse, Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2020 Elections:Final Report on Survey Results Submitted to the Election Assistance Commission, U.S. Elections Assistance Comm’n and Rutgers Univ., 10 (Feb. 16, 2021), https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/voters/Disability_and_voting_accessibility_in_the_2020_elections_final_report_on_survey_results.pdf (“The likelihood of voting independently without difficulty was lower for people with disabilities than for people without disabilities both among in-person voters (79% comparedto 88%) and voters using mail ballots (86% compared to 97%.”).
39
See, e.g., Vesla M. Weaver & Amy E. Lerman, Political Consequences of the Carceral State, Am. Pol. Sci. Rep. (Nov. 2010), https://veslaweaver.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/weaverlerman2010.pdf.
40
Andrew Howard Nichols & J. Oliver Schak, Degree Attainment for Black Adults: National and State Trends, The Educ. Tr. (2017), https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Black-Degree-Attainment_FINAL.pdf.
41
Table 219.46. Public High School 4-year Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR), By Selected Student Characteristics and State: 2010-11 Through 2018-19, Nat’l Ctr. for Educ. Stat. (Feb. 2021), https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_219.46.asp.
42
Kristen Lewis, A Portrait of Louisiana 2020: Human Development in the Age of Uncertainty, Soc. Sci. Rsch. Council, 72 (2020), https://ssrc-static.s3.amazonaws.com/moa/A_Portrait_of_Louisiana_2020.pdf.
43
Id. at 98.
44
Id. at 99.
45
Id. at 97.
46
See, e.g., Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, n.451 (M.D. La. 2024) (“Data from the 2019 American Community Survey showed that a significant portion of Black households do not have access to a vehicle and that Black property ‘is more than double, almost triple that of White poverty.’”).
47
Community Partnerships & Health Equity: Louisiana Health Profiles, La. Dep’t of Health https://web.archive.org/web/20221001182644/ldh.la.gov/page/670 (last visited Jan. 9, 2023) (posting, e.g., Univ. of Wisc. Population Health Inst.,Louisiana 2019 County Health Rankings Report at 4 (2019) noting that Black respondents reported 4.7 poor physical health days and 4.5 poor mental health days per month compared to 3.8 and 4.1 days reported, respectively, by white respondents in Louisiana.).
48
Schur & Kruse, supra note 38, at 14. (“People with disabilities are less likely than those without disabilities to have a car they can drive (70% compared to 90%) or to use their own or a family vehicle (83% compared to 93%)”).
49
Wendy Sawyer, Louisiana Incarceration Rates by Race, Prison Pol’y Initiative (Sept. 2023), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/rates2021/LA_Rates_2021.html.
50
See Cindy Chang, How Louisiana Became The World’s ‘Prison Capital’, NPR (Jun. 5, 2012), https://www.npr.org/2012/06/05/154352977/how-louisiana-became-the-worlds-prison-capital.
51
Sawyer,supra note 49.See also La. Const. art. I, § 10; La. R.S. § 18-102(A)(1)(b).
52
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, President/CEO of Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, by phone (hereinafter “Power Coalition”) (Feb. 22, 2024) (on file with author). Power Coalition is “a coalition of community-based organizations who work together to educate and empower voters across Louisiana.” See About, Power Coal. for Equity and Just. https://powercoalition.org/about/ (last visited March 14, 2024). Power Coalition has been represented by the author as a named organizational plaintiff in multiple cases, including Harding v. Edwards, 487 F. Supp. 3d 498, 529 (M.D. La. 2020),Robinson v. Ardoin, 605 F. Supp. 3d 759, 766 (M.D. La. 2022), & Callais v. Landry, No. 3:24-CV-00122 (W.D. La. 2024).
53
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
54
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
55
See Appendix.
56
Id.
57
Id. See also infra section IV.
58
For most general purposes in this piece, turnout disparities are calculated by subtracting the rate of turnout among Black registered voters from the rate of turnout among the white registered voters eligible in an election, the measure for turnout reported by Louisiana’s Secretary of State, the state’s chief election administrator. Each month, the Secretary of State publicly reports the number of registered voters by race and, following elections, the Office provides post-election returns, including the number and percentage of voters who participated by race. All data can be readily found on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website. See Find Results & Statistics, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/GetElectionInformation/FindResultsAndStatistics/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Jan. 13, 2025). Notably, however, there are multiple ways to calculate turnout rates, which can reveal different trends. For example, Dr. Bernard Fraga, a professor of political science and leading scholar on racial turnout disparities nationwide, often calculates turnout gaps by comparing the number of voters in a racial group who participated in an election as a fraction of their citizen voting age population in the jurisdiction (e.g. Black citizens over the age of 18). See, e.g., Bernard Fraga, Online Appendix for The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America (Aug. 18, 2019), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fac72852ca67743c720d6a1/t/6197bf91e46a2b0e9c1027ed/1637334930420/Fraga_TurnoutGap_2018_OA.pdf. This comparison can help capture disparities in access at the point of registration and other variables that can lead to underreporting. However, this analysis often requires separate Census Bureau or third-party vendor data. This paper instead primarily uses the data publicly reported by the Louisiana Secretary of State because it is the data most readily available to lawmakers and other stakeholders responsible for understanding voting trends—leaders who should be most accountable to addressing inequities in election systems. The use of this data does not suggest it is thebest assessment of turnout disparities, but rather that it is one of multiple measures that can no longer be ignored. Indeed, those in Louisiana charged with administering fair elections and sustaining democratic principles have had public access to this exact data for years. See Official Results, La. Sec. of State, https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/graphical (last visited Jan. 22, 2025) (post-election results with turnout statistics by race reported back until at least 2012 graphically, and with raw data longer); see also See Post-Election Statistics, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/PostElectionStatisticsStatewide.aspx (last visited Feb. 1, 2025) (with post-election turnout statistics by race reported back to 1998). Now is as critical a moment as ever to address these disparities head on.
59
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:402.
60
Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco did not run for reelection in 2007 and Governor John Bel Edwards was term-limited prior to the 2023 election. Both Governor Bobby Jindal and Governor Jeff Landry won outright in primary elections with more than 50 percent of votes cast.
61
See Appendix.
62
See, e.g., Chris McCrory, How John Bel Edwards Won the Louisiana Governor’s Race, WWL-TV (Nov. 17, 2019), https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/politics/how-john-bel-edwards-won/289-cfccb2c0-798f-43b5-a55d-20aec55d03fb; see also Tyler Bridges, Gov. John Bel Edwards Wins Cheers, Support Among Black Voters, The Key Democrat Constituency, The Advocate (Oct. 7, 2019), https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/elections/gov-john-bel-edwards-wins-cheers-support-among-black-voters-the-key-democrat-constituency/article_4a69636e-e946-11e9-b749-d36604810bf3.html.
63
See infra section IV(b) for further discussion on race and partisan alignment.
64
See infra section IV(b)(iv); see also, e.g., Matt A. Barreto, Gary M. Segura, & Nathan D. Woods, The Mobilizing Effect of Majority–Minority Districts on Latino Turnout, 98 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. (Feb. 2004), http://mattbarreto.com/papers/majmin.pdf.
65
See Appendix.
66
Candidate Inquiry, La. Sec. of State (Dec. 5, 2024), https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/candidateinquiry (last visited Feb. 21, 2024).
67
See Harding v. Edwards, 487 F. Supp. 3d 498, 529 (M.D. La. 2020). Author was counsel for Plaintiffs.
68
Compare Statewide Early Voting Statistical Report, La. Sec of State (Dec. 5, 2020), https://electionstatistics.sos.la.gov/Data/Early_Voting_Statistics/statewide/2020_1205_StatewideStats.pdf, with Report of Registered Voters, La. Sec. of State, (Dec. 1, 2020), https://electionstatistics.sos.la.gov/Data/Registration_Statistics/statewide/2020_1201_sta_comb.pdf. Notably, however, this data is not disaggregated by race across votes cast early by mail versus in person and a similar dip in the turnout gap did not extend to the November election that year, which fell under the same court order.
69
See State Wide Post Election Statistical Report, La. Sec. of State (Feb. 18, 2023), https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Felectionstatistics.sos.la.gov%2FData%2FPost_Election_Statistics%2Fstatewide%2F2023_0218_sta.xls&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK.
70
Interview with Michael McClanahan, President of the NAACP Louisiana State Conference, by phone (Feb. 20, 2024) (on file with author). The NAACP Louisiana State Conference has been represented by the author as a named organizational plaintiff in multiple cases, including Harding v. Edwards, 484 F. Supp. 3d 299 (M.D. La. 2020), Robinson v. Ardoin, 605 F. Supp. 3d 759 (M.D. La. 2022), Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808 (M.D. La. 2024), & Callais v. Landry, No. 3:24-CV-00122 (W.D. La.).
71
Interview with M. Christian Green, President of the League of Women Voters – Louisiana, via phone (Feb. 5, 2024) (on file with author).
72
Id.
73
Id.
74
Interview with Keturah Butler-Reed, Black Voters Matter – Louisiana Southwest Regional Organizer, via phone (Feb. 7, 2024) (on file with author). Black Voters Matter is represented by the author as a named organizational plaintiff in Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 870 (M.D. La. 2024).
75
Id.
76
Id.
77
Roland Martin, Black Voting CRISIS: What The H*ll Happened In The Louisiana Governor’s Election?, YouTube (Oct. 17, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFRb65qSswU.
78
Id.
79
Id.
80
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
81
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
82
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
83
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
84
Experts Look at Historically Low Voter Turn Out In Louisiana, The Daily Advertiser (Dec. 28, 2023), https://news.yahoo.com/experts-look-historically-low-voter-170112810.html.
85
Id.
86
Jurisdictions Previously Covered By Section 5, C.R. Div. U.S. Dep’t of Just., https://www.justice.gov/crt/jurisdictions-previously-covered-section-5 (last visited Feb. 17, 2024).
87
Shelby Cnty., Ala. v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529, 557 (2013) (“We issue no holding on § 5 itself, only on the coverage formula. Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions.”).
88
See H.R.14/S.4, 118th Cong. (2021), https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4?s=1&r=482; see also Brian Bushard, Senate Dems Try Again To Pass John Lewis Voting Rights Act—Years After Republicans Blocked It, Forbes (Feb. 29, 2024), https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-dems-try-again-to-pass-john-lewis-voting-rights-act-years-after-republicans-blocked-it/ar-BB1j7x3H.
89
Kevin Morris, Peter Miller, & Coryn Grange, Racial Turnout Gap Grew in Jurisdictions Previously Covered by the Voting Rights Act, Brennan Ctr. (Aug. 20, 2021), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/racial-turnout-gap-grew-jurisdictions-previously-covered-voting-rights; see also Kevin Morris & Coryn Grange, Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout, 2008–2022, Brennan Ctr. (Mar. 2, 2024), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/growing-racial-disparities-voter-turnout-2008-2022.
90
Voting Determination Letters for Louisiana, C.R. Div. U.S. Dep’t of Just., https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-determination-letters-louisiana (last visited Feb. 17, 2024).
91
See,e.g., Liz Avore, 10 Years Since Shelby County v. Holder: Where We Are and Where We’re Heading, Voting Rts. Lab (June 27, 2023), https://votingrightslab.org/2023/06/27/10-years-since-shelby-v-holder-where-we-are-and-where-were-heading/; see also Jasleen Singh & Sara Carter, States Have Added Nearly 100 Restrictive Laws Since SCOTUS Gutted the Voting Rights Act 10 Years Ago, Brennan Ctr.(June 23, 2023), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/states-have-added-nearly-100-restrictive-laws-scotus-gutted-voting-rights.
92
Id.
93
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton,supra note 52.
94
Interview with Valencia Richardson, Campaign Legal Center Attorney, by phone (Feb. 7, 2024) (on file with author).
95
Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 870 (M.D. La. 2024).
96
Id.
97
See Wendy Weiser, Automatic Voter Registration Boosts Political Participation, Brennan Ctr. (Jan. 29, 2016), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/automatic-voter-registration-boosts-political-participation.
98
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:104; see also Register to Vote, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/RegisterToVote/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Feb. 17, 2024).
99
Interview with A’Niya Robinson, ACLU of Louisiana Advocacy Strategist, by phone (Feb. 26, 2024) (on file with author).
100
Id.
101
See National Voter Registration Act, 52 U.S.C.A. § 20507 (West) (setting a maximum registration cutoff at thirty days prior to any federal election).
102
Register to Vote, supra note 98.
103
Id.
104
See, e.g., Michael J. Hanmer & Samuel B. Novey, Who Lacked Photo ID in 2020? An Exploration of the American National Election Studies, Ctr. for Democracy And Civic Engagement (Mar. 13, 2023), https://www.voteriders.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CDCE_VoteRiders_ANES2020Report_Spring2023.pdf (“People who identified as Black non-Hispanic (6.2% lack photo ID), Hispanic (6.1% lack photo ID), or Native American, Native Alaskan, or another race (4.5% lack photo ID) were about twice as likely as those who identified as White non-Hispanic (2.3% lack photo ID) or Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (1.6% lack photo ID) to lack any non-expired government issued photo ID.”); see also Jillian Andres Rothschild, Samuel B. Novey, & Michael J. Hanmer, Who Lacks ID in America Today? An Exploration of Voter ID Access, Barriers, and Knowledge, Ctr. for Democracy And Civic Engagement (Jan. 2024), https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20Jan%202024%20(1).pdf.
105
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:196 (“D. If a registrant who has failed to respond to an address confirmation notice and whose name appears on the inactive list of voters does not vote in any election from the date the registrant is placed on the inactive list of voters until the day after the second regularly scheduled general election for federal office held after such date, the registrar shall cancel the registration of the registrant.”).
106
See La. Rev. Stat. 18 § 521(C)(2).
107
See,e.g., Protecting Voter Registration An Assessment of Voter Purge Policies in Ten States, Demos (Aug. 2023), https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/2023-11/Protecting%20Voter%20Registration%20-%20Full%20report.pdf.
108
Sawyer, supra note 49.
109
See La. Rev. Stat. 18 § 176(B).
110
See Fighting Louisiana’s Unnecessary Barriers for Re-enfranchised Voters (VOTE v. Ardoin), Campaign Legal Ctr., https://campaignlegal.org/cases-actions/fighting-louisianas-unnecessary-barriers-re-enfranchised-voters-vote-v-ardoin (last visited Feb. 17, 2024).
111
Sawyer, supra note49.
112
Interview with Keturah Butler-Reed, supra note 74.
113
Interview with Keturah Butler-Reed, supra note 74.
114
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
115
See Early Voting, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Vote/VoteEarly/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Feb. 17, 2024) (“You do not need a reason to vote early! All voters may vote early, just like they are voting on election day.”).
116
See Vote Absentee, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Vote/VoteByMail/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Feb. 17, 2024).
117
See, e.g., Greg Hilburn, Louisiana Breaks Early Voting Record With Republicans Dominating, Shreveport Times (Oct. 30, 2024), https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2024/10/30/louisiana-breaks-early-voting-record-with-republicans-dominating-polls/75937853007/.
118
See Jeff Palmero, Early Voting Data Shows Poor Turnout Among Black Voters, La. Radio Network (Nov. 1, 2022), https://louisianaradionetwork.com/2022/11/01/early-voting-data-shows-poor-turnout-among-black-voters/; see also Bonnie Bolden, Who Early Voted In Louisiana? See The Numbers By Party, Gender, Race, BRProud (Nov. 5, 2024), https://www.brproud.com/news/louisiana-news/who-early-voted-in-louisiana-see-the-numbers-by-party-gender-race/.
119
See Early Voting Locations, La. Sec. of State, https://web.archive.org/web/20250924152734/voterportal.sos.la.gov/earlyvoting (last visited Sep. 25, 2025); La. Rev. Stat. 18 § 1309.
120
Id.
121
See id. For example, voters in Calcasieu Parish, home of Shreveport, have access to half as many early voting sites (two) as voters in Calcasieu Parish (four), home of Lake Charles – a much smaller city by population. See Kristen Carney, Louisiana Cities by Population (2025), Louisiana Demographics by Cubit,https://www.louisiana-demographics.com/cities_by_population.
122
Sites per voters is calculated by dividing the number of early voting locations by the number of early voting sites available. See Statewide Report of Registered Voted, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/RegistrationStatisticsStatewide.aspx (last visited Jan. 22, 2025, noting registration data as of Jan. 1, 2025); see also Early Voting Locations, La. Sec. of State, https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/earlyvoting (last visited Jan. 22, 2025). Note that early voting locations reported on the website may change over time. At the time of this writing, early voting in Caddo Parish was offered at the Registrar of Voters Office and the Shreve Memorial Library, while early voting in Cameron Parish was offered at the Cameron West Annex, Grand Lake Library, and Hackberry Community Center.
123
See Early Voting Locations, La. Sec. of State, https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/earlyvoting (last visited Jan. 22, 2025).
124
Deborah Bayliss, Long Lines as Early Voting Gets Underway in Shreveport, Shreveport Times (Oct. 16, 2016), https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2020/10/16/election-2020-early-voting-shreveport-la-begins-turnout-high-caddo-parish/3668905001/; see also Kevin Mcgill & Rebecca Santana,Long Lines as Expanded Early Voting Opens in Louisiana, Associated Press (Oct. 16, 2020), https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-nba-basketball-new-orleans-new-orleans-pelicans-4e472d8f86226debbb120bc71cb92a46; see also Faimon A. Roberts III & Della Hasselle, Fewer Machines, Long Lines Plague Jefferson Parish Early Voting: ‘People Are Frustrated,’ NOLA.com (Oct. 19, 2020), https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_c76ff7c2-123c-11eb-8360-a7684b6d5aa9.html.
125
See Vote by Mail, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Vote/VoteByMail/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Feb. 27, 2024) (listing qualifications to vote absentee by mailing, including: Senior Citizen (65 years of age or older); Temporarily Absent (absent from state or parish during voting period); Offshore (working offshore during the voting period); Nursing Home (residing in a nursing home, veterans’ home or a hospital for an extended stay for a physical disability during the voting period); Higher Education (student, instructor or professor or spouse/dependent outside of parish during the voting period); Clergy (minister, priest, rabbi, or other member of the clergy assigned outside of your parish during the voting period); Moved Out of Parish (moved more than 100 miles from the parish seat of your former residence after the voter registration books closed); Involuntary Confinement (confined for mental treatment outside your parish and not interdicted and not judicially declared incompetent during the voting period); Hospitalized (expected to be hospitalized on election day and did not have knowledge of the hospitalization until after the time for early voting had expired or were hospitalized during the time for early voting); Incarcerated (incarcerated and not under an order of imprisonment for conviction of a felony during the voting period); Address Confidentiality Program (participating in the secretary of state’s Address Confidentiality Program during the voting period); Juror (sequestered on the day of the election); Physical Disability (with proof of disability); Homebound (homebound and cannot vote without assistance); Military (military members and families stationed outside home parish)).
126
See Harding v. Edwards, 487 F. Supp. 3d 498, 529 (M.D. La. 2020).
127
See, supra section II.
128
See, e.g., Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency (Sept. 2021), http://www.epa.gov/cira/social-vulnerability-report.
129
See,e.g., Nicholas Reimann, Zeta Was Strongest Hurricane To Ever Hit New Orleans—And Could Cause An Election Day Mess, Forbes (Oct. 29, 2020), https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/10/29/zeta-was-strongest-hurricane-to-ever-hit-new-orleans-and-could-cause-an-election-day-mess/?sh=79cf5f208a6d.
130
Id.
131
Dana Canedy, Three People Killed In Louisiana As Vast US Storm System Brings Tornadoes, Associated Press (Dec. 15, 2022), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/15/three-people-killed-louisiana-us-storm-system-tornadoes.
132
See Democracy Diverted: Polling Place Closures and the Right to Vote, The Leadership Conf. Educ. Fund, 20 (Sept. 2019), civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/reports/Democracy-Diverted.pdf.
133
See Polling Place Changes, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/GetElectionInformation/PollingLocationChanges/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Feb. 17, 2024).
134
See Dwayne Fatherree, Sending a Strong Message: Louisiana Activists Help Voters Cast Ballots After Drastic Polling Place Reductions in Black Neighborhoods, SPLC (Nov. 19, 2021), https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021/11/19/sending-strong-message-louisiana-activists-help-voters-cast-ballots-after-drastic-polling; see also Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 869 (M.D. La. 2024) (“The effect of closing polling places which serve primarily Black voters was manifest in the 2020 election when many Black voters in Jefferson Parish experienced five-hour waiting times to cast a ballot. Precinct consolidation in St. Landry Parish resulted in some Black voters having to drive 25 miles to cast a ballot.”).
135
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:115(F)(1).
136
Interview with Valencia Richardson, supra note 94.
137
Interview with Jordan Braithwaite, former NAACP Louisiana State Conference Youth and College President, by phone (Feb. 19, 2024) (on file with author).
138
Id.
139
Id.
140
Id.[/mfn With no site on campus, she saw lack of access as a driving force for depleted turnout among her peers, contrasting her experience with peers at Southern University who have an on-campus site.¹⁴⁰Id.
141
Id.
142
Interview with Michael McClanahan, supra note 70.
143
See, e.g., Julián Aguilar, Election Day in Texas Is Finally Here. Here’s What to Watch For, The Tex. Newsroom (Nov. 8, 2022), https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/texas-election-day-2022-key-races-governor-lieutenant-governor-attorney-general/ (“Some counties require voters go to their specific precincts if they vote on Election Day. That’s because some counties still use a precinct model…about a third of Texas’ 254 counties have moved away from that and adopted the vote-center model.”).
144
See Act No. 480, 2021 Reg. Sess. (La. 2021), https://legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1236590; see also La. Sec of State, La Voting System Comm’n Members, as of Oct. 12, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20221012144620/https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/TaskForceAndStudyGroups/Pages/VotingSystemCommission.aspx.
145
Interview with Michael McClanahan, supra note 70.
146
Interview with Michael McClanahan, supra note 70.
147
Interview with Michael McClanahan, supra note 70.
148
Interview with A’Niya Robinson, supra note 99.
149
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52; see also H.C.R. 14, 2022 Reg. Sess. (La. 2022), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=242711.
150
See H.C.R. 14, 2022 Reg. Sess. (La. 2022), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=242711.
151
See Act No. 277, 2023 Reg. Sess. (La. 2023), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1332439.
152
See H.B. 553, 2023 Reg. Sess. (La. 2023), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=244541.
153
See, e.g., Community Partnerships supra note 47.
154
See, e.g., Wesley Muller, Disabled People Face GOP Pushback in Bid to Study Voting Access, La. Illuminator (Apr. 20, 2022), https://lailluminator.com/2022/04/20/disabled-people-face-gop-pushback-in-bid-to-study-voting-access/; Alyssa Spady, Kati Weis, New Louisiana election laws creating challenges for voters with disabilities, CBS News (Nov. 2, 2024), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-louisiana-election-laws-challenges-voters-with-disabilities/.
155
La. Rev. Stat. § 18:402 (2024).
156
Pl.’s Post-Trial Br., Nairne v. Ardoin, 2023 WL 11199649 (M.D.La.) (“Commissioner of Elections Sherri Hadskey testified that seven elections were ultimately scheduled in 2023 and as many as seventeen elections have been held in a single year” citing Draft 12/4/23 Trial Tr. 128:16-129:12).
157
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:402 (2024); see also La. Rev. Stat. § 18:602 (2024).
158
See Act 1, 2024 First Extraordinary Sess. (La. 2024), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=245514.
159
See, e.g., How Are Candidates Elected?, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/GetElectionInformation/HowAreCandidatesElected/Pages/default.aspx#mv (last visited Feb. 17, 2024); see also Meg Kinnard, Louisiana Uses a ‘Jungle Primary’ for Its Elections. What Does That Mean? PBS News (Oct. 20, 2022), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/louisiana-uses-a-jungle-primary-for-its-elections-what-does-that-mean.
160
See, e.g., Search Election Dates, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/GetElectionInformation/SearchElectionDates/Pages/default.aspx (last visited Feb. 28, 2024).
161
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:402 (2024).
162
Id.
163
See La. Rev. Stat. § 18:1309 A.(1)(a)(i) (2024) (“The period for conducting early voting shall be from fourteen days to seven days prior to any scheduled election. However, for the presidential election, the period for conducting early voting shall be from eighteen days to seven days prior to the presidential election.”).
164
See, e.g., Jeff Adelson & Christian Clark, Smoothie King Center Will Host Early Voting; See Dates, Who’s Allowed, More, NOLA.com (Sept. 22, 2020), https://www.nola.com/sports/pelicans/smoothie-king-center-will-host-early-voting-see-dates-whos-allowed-more/article_9a2e08fa-fcff-11ea-bec2-4f9596857a93.html (despite concerns regarding coronavirus exposure throughout 2020 and following years, the federal presidential election was the only date to accommodate expanded early voting at sites like the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans).
165
La. Rev. Stat. § 18:402 (2024).
166
All dates aligned on October 14, 2023.See 2023 Elections, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/PublishedDocuments/ElectionsCalendar2023.pdf (revised Dec. 2022); se also Keymonte Avery, Southern University 2023 Homecoming Activities Released, BRProud (Oct. 5, 2023), https://www.brproud.com/sports/southern-university-2023-homecoming-activities-released/; see also Michael Bonnette, LSU Football vs. Auburn Kickoff, TV Network Options Announced, LSUSports.net (Oct, 2, 2023), https://lsusports.net/news/2023/10/02/lsu-football-vs-auburn-kickoff-tv-network-announced/.
167
See Travers Mackel, ‘A Logistical Nightmare’: Special Election for Downtown New Orleans State House Seat the Same Day as Carnival Parades, WDSU News (Jan. 6, 2023), https://www.wdsu.com/article/special-election-downtown-new-orleans-state-house-seat-the-same-day-parades/42421672.
168
Interview with Keturah Butler-Reed supra note 74.
169
Wesley Muller, Louisiana’s Top Election Official Says Holiday Shopping Makes December Elections Difficult, La. Illuminator (Dec. 17, 2021), https://lailluminator.com/briefs/louisianas-top-election-official-says-holiday-shopping-makes-december-elections-difficult/.
170
Id.
171
Id.
172
Runoffs in Primary and General Elections, Nat’l Conf. of State Legislatures (Jan. 22, 2025), https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/primary-runoffs.
173
See Muller supra note 169.
174
Id.
175
Id.
176
Act 1, Fiscal Note, Legislative Fiscal Office (La. 2024), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1340839.
177
Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 872 (M.D. La. 2024).
178
Id.
179
Id.
180
See, e.g., N.A.A.C.P. v. Hampton Cnty. Election Com’n., 470 U.S. 166, 174 (1985) (“[T]he date of an election is covered by the [Voting Rights] Act.”); Garcia v. Guerra, 744 F.2d 1159, 1165 (5th Cir. 1984) (“[A]bandoning the usual . . . date for school elections . . . had the effect of depriving substantial numbers of Hispanic voters of the right to vote in the election.”); United States v. Village of Port Chester, 704 F. Supp. 2d 411, 444 (S.D.N.Y. 2010) (the city’s “practice of holding local elections ‘off-cycle’ in March . . . enhance[d] the opportunity for discrimination against the Hispanic voting population”).
181
See, e.g., Nairne, 715 F. Supp. 3d at 869(“Gingles II asks whether Black voters are ‘politically cohesive,’ – in other words, whether Black voters usually support the same candidate in elections. Gingles III asks whether White voters vote ‘sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat [Black voters’] preferred candidate.’ Based on the testimony and reports of expert witnesses presented at trial, the Court finds that the Plaintiffs have proven both preconditions.”); see also Terrebonne Par. Branch NAACP v. Jindal, 274 F. Supp. 3d 395, 433–37 (M.D. La. 2017), overruled on other grounds by Fusilier v. Landry, 963 F.3d 447 (5th Cir. 2020) (finding RPV in judicial elections in Terrebonne Parish); St. Bernard Citizens for Better Government v. St. Bernard Parish School Board, 2002 WL 2022589 at *11 (E.D. La. Aug. 26, 2002) (finding RPV in statewide gubernatorial and local parish elections); La. State Conference of NAACP v. Louisiana, 490 F. Supp. 3d 982, 1019 (M.D. La. 2020) (holding that plaintiff had standing to challenge Louisiana’s Supreme Court district map in part on the basis of allegations of polarized voting).
182
See Nairne, 715 F. Supp. 3d at 868.
183
See, e.g., Samuel Wonacott, 55% of State Legislative Primaries Are Contested in Louisiana This Year, Ballotopedia (Sept. 1, 2023), https://news.ballotpedia.org/2023/09/01/55-of-state-legislative-primaries-are-contested-in-louisiana-this-year/ (reporting that 45 percent of recent state legislative races have been uncontested).
184
Nairne, 715 F. Supp. 3d at 863.
185
For example, the offices of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and Secretary of State were all held by Republicans during Governor Edwards’ tenure, and every statewide office was claimed by Republicans in 2023.
186
Nairne, 715 F. Supp. 3d at 875.(“It is undisputed that Black Louisianans are underrepresented in public office. No Black candidates have been elected as Governor or Lieutenant Governor in Louisiana since the end of Reconstruction. Never in history has Louisiana elected a Black U.S. Senator.”).
187
Molly Ryan, Piper Naudin, Eliza Stanley, & Sanaa Dotson, Experts Look at Historically Low Voter Turn Out in Louisiana, The Daily Advertiser (Dec. 28, 2023), https://news.yahoo.com/experts-look-historically-low-voter-170112810.html.
188
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
189
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
190
Official Results, La. Sec. of State (Oct. 14, 2023), https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/graphical.
191
Id.
192
David Jones, After Abysmal Election Showing, Some Say Louisiana’s Democratic Party Needs New Leadership, WVUE New Orleans (Oct. 18, 2023), https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/after-abysmal-election-showing-some-say-louisiana-s-democratic-party-needs-new-leadership/ar-AA1ipxdh.
193
Id.
194
See Roland Martin, Louisiana’s Democratic Party Crisis, Tenn. Pastor Survives Hamas-Israel Attack, No House Speaker, YouTube (Oct. 17, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_5x3px_3Rc.
195
Id.
196
See James Finn, Landry Boasts Huge Cash Lead Over Wilson Before Primary, The Times-Picayune (Oct. 5, 2023), https://www.nola.com/news/politics/elections/landry-boasts-huge-cash-lead-over-wilson-before-primary/article_2a2d874c-6386-11ee-96dc-57c24aa9f0c1.html.
197
Jones, supra note 193.
198
Jones, supra note 193.
199
See Roland Martin, supra note 195.
200
See Roland Martin, supra note 195.
201
See Roland Martin, supra note 195.
202
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
203
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
204
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
205
See Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 875 (M.D. La. 2024).
206
See, e.g., Jeff Landry, A Shame, YouTube (Aug. 16, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDR6Dnkmgr4 (“[T]oo many classrooms are filled with woke politics instead of teaching”); see also Jeff Landry, Fed Up, YouTube (Sept. 19, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLAw39Rin3Y (“crime is out of control…End catch and release. Criminals should serve their time.”).
207
Jenna Vitamanti, Landry Has a New Campaign Ad Targeting Crime and Black District Attorneys, KTAL (May 23, 2023), https://www.ktalnews.com/news/politics/landry-has-a-new-campaign-ad-targeting-crime-and-black-district-attorneys/.
208
See Jacob Fischler, Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins’ ‘overtly racist’ Tweet Sparks Calls for Censure in U.S. House, La. Illuminator (Sept. 25, 2024), https://lailluminator.com/2024/09/25/higgins-haiti/.
209
Christopher Stout & Keith Baker, The Super-Predator Effect: How Negative Targeted Messages Demobilize Black Voters, British J.of Pol. Sci., 1-14 (2021). These effects were cited in expert testimony by Dr. Traci Burch in recent federal voting rights cases in Louisiana, including Nairne v. Landry, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808 (M.D. La. 2024).
210
Kaylee Poche, The Louisiana Democratic Party Begins to Map Out its Future After Hitting Rock Bottom, NOLA.com (Jan. 6, 2025), https://www.nola.com/gambit/news/the_latest/louisiana-democratic-party-leaders-look-to-rebuild/article_3f8e57ec-bef2-11ef-b0af-7b232019b3b2.html.
211
Jeff Adelson & Lara Nicholson, Election Turnout Fell in Every Louisiana Parish. Politics, Race Determined the Drop’s Size, NOLA.com (Nov. 9. 2024), https://www.nola.com/news/politics/more-louisiana-voters-stayed-home-for-2024-presidential-election/article_406357d8-9e33-11ef-adbb-138b97b0c84d.html.
212
See, e.g., Dan Gooding, Donald Trump Won More Black Voters Than Any Republican in 48 Years—Analyst, Newsweek (Nov. 8, 2024), https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-black-voters-gains-results-1982939.
213
See Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 875-76 (M.D. La. 2024).(M.D. La. Feb. 8, 2024) (“It is undisputed that Black Louisianans are underrepresented in public office. No Black candidates have been elected as Governor or Lieutenant Governor in Louisiana since the end of Reconstruction. Never in history has Louisiana elected a Black U.S. Senator. Since 1991, only four Black Louisianans have been elected to Congress, and then only from majority-Black districts. This underrepresentation persists at other levels of state and local government as well. While the state is roughly one-third Black, Black legislators held only 36 out of 144 total State House seats in 2023 and Black senators held only 10 out of 39 total State Senate seats. Less than 25 percent of Louisiana mayors are Black, and only 26.1 percent of Louisiana state court judges are Black. Two of the eight elected Board of Elementary and Secondary Education members are Black, both elected from majority-Black districts. And only one Associate Justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court, who was elected from the State’s sole majority-Black Supreme Court district, is Black.”).
214
See Major v. Treen, 574 F. Supp. 325 (E.D. La. 1983).
215
See Molly Ryan, After a Court Fight, Louisiana’s New Congressional Map Boosts Black Political Power, NPR (Jan. 23, 2024), https://text.npr.org/2024/01/23/1226364461/louisana-new-congressional-districts; Callais v. Landry, 732 F. Supp. 3d 574 (W.D.L.A 2024), appeal dismissed 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 7139 (5th Cir. Mar. 27, 2025). Author is counsel for the Robinson Intervenors.
216
All congressional races were determined without need for a runoff election, so calculations are based on the November 2024 elections rather than the December 2024 statewide general elections.
217
See Official Results, La. Sec. of State, https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/graphical (last visited Jan. 22, 2025) (summary of post-election turnout statistics); see also See Post-Election Statistics, La. Sec. of State, https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/PostElectionStatisticsStatewide.aspx (last visited Jan. 22, 2025) (granular post-election turnout data).
218
Turnout gaps calculated with the assistance of Dr. Bernard Fraga, using data derived from the voter file and U.S. Census, mostly coming from the Redistricting Data Hub. See Louisiana, Redistricting Data Hub, https://redistrictingdatahub.org/state/louisiana/ (last visited Jan. 22, 2025).
219
See,e.g.,Chisom v. Louisiana ex rel. Landry, 85 F.4th 288 (5th Cir. 2023); see also Molly Ryan, Legislature Gives Final Approval to State Supreme Court Map with 2 Majority-Black Districts, KRVS (Apr. 29, 2024) https://www.krvs.org/louisiana-news/2024-04-29/legislature-gives-final-approval-to-state-supreme-court-map-with-2-majority-black-districts.
220
2 Louisiana Supreme Court Candidates Disqualified, Leaving 1 on the Ballot, Associated Press (Aug. 24, 2024), https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-supreme-court-candidates-disqualified-ef01ab6f8234a408ca799d80d9dc5dfd.
221
Litigation challenging the state legislative maps demonstrates that six additional majority-Black House districts and three majority-Black Senate districts can be drawn, enough to upend the supermajority of the balance of power in the Legislature. See Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, 877 (M.D. La. 2024).
222
See Notice of Appeal, Nairne, No. 24-30115 (5^th Cir. Feb 22, 2024) (oral argument conducted on Jan. 7, 2025).
223
See Candidate Inquiry, La. Sec. of State, https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/candidateinquiry (lasted visited Feb. 17, 2024); see also Samuel Wonacott, supra note 184 (Reporting that 79 of 144 legislative seats had primary elections (54.9%) that were contested in 2023, which was lower than in 2019 (63.9%) and 2011 (56.3%), but higher than in 2015 (48.6%).
224
See generally,supra section IV(b)(ii); see also,e.g., James Finn, Landry Boasts Huge Cash Lead Over Wilson Before Primary, NOLA.com (Oct. 5, 2023), https://www.nola.com/news/politics/elections/landry-boasts-huge-cash-lead-over-wilson-before-primary/article_2a2d874c-6386-11ee-96dc-57c24aa9f0c1.html; Roland Martin, Black Voting CRISIS: What The H*ll Happened In The Louisiana Governor’s Election?, YouTube (Oct. 17, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFRb65qSswU (Prof. Robert Collins discussing the Democratic Party’s limited spending on the Wilson campaign and lack of fundraising “apparatus” to support candidates).
225
Nairne v. Ardoin, 715 F. Supp. 3d 808, n.480 (M.D. La. 2024).
226
Id.
227
Id.
228
See infra section II.
229
Louisiana has no state-imposed minimum wage and thus is tied to the federal minimum wage at $7.25. See State Minimum Wage Laws, U.S. Dept. of Lab.(updated July 31, 2025), https:/ /www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state#la (last visited Feb. 17, 2024); see also Randall Akee, Voting and Income, EconoFact (Feb. 7, 2019), https://econofact.org/voting-and-income.
230
See The Freedom to Vote Act, H.R.11/S.1, 118th Cong. (2023); see also Jonathan Diaz, A Comprehensive Look at the Freedom To Vote Act, Campaign Legal Ctr. (Sept. 17, 2021), https://campaignlegal.org/update/comprehensive-look-freedom-vote-act#:~:text=The%20bill%20expands%20protections%20for%20minority.
231
See The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, H.R.14/S.4, 118th Cong. (2023); see also The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act Fact Sheet, Brennan Ctr., https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act (last updated Feb. 29, 2024).
232
See, e.g., Interview with Ashley Shelton, supra note 52.
233
See, e.g. H.C.R. 144, 2023 Reg. Sess. (La. 2023) (left pending on House floor).
234
Zoltan L. Hajnal, Vladimir Kogan, & G. Agustin Markarian, Who Votes: City Election Timing and Voter Composition, Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. (July 16, 2021), https://ssrn.com/abstract=3888349.
235
Id.
236
Garmann, supra note 14.
237
H.B. 286, 2021 Reg. Sess. (La. 2021) (signed into law by the Governor).
238
Act No. 365, 2021 Reg. Sess. (La. 2021).
239
Bonnie Bolden, Who Early Voted in Louisiana? See the Numbers by Party, Gender, Race, BRProud (Nov. 5, 2024), https://www.brproud.com/news/louisiana-news/who-early-voted-in-louisiana-see-the-numbers-by-party-gender-race/.
240
See, e.g., Greg LaRose,Additional Early Voting Locations Rejected in La. House Committee, La. Illuminator (May 23, 2023), https://lailluminator.com/2023/05/23/early-voting/.
241
42 U.S.C. §§ 1973-1973aa-6; 42 U.S. Code § 12101.
242
See, e.g., Brnovich v. Democratic Nat’l Comm., 594 U.S. 647 (2021).
243
Interview with Ashley K. Shelton, supra note 52.
244
See, e.g., La. Sec. of State, February 10, 2023 HCR 14 Disability Voting Task Force Meeting, YouTube (Feb. 10, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5_PlfCJxfQ; see also H.B. 449, 2023 Reg. Sess. (La. 2023), https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?i=244405.
245
Interview with Keturah Butler-Reed, supra note 74.
246
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
247
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
248
Interview with A’Niya Robinson, supra note 99.
249
Interview with Jordan Braithwaite, supra note 137.
250
Interview with Jordan Braithwaite, supra note 137.
251
Interview with Jordan Braithwaite, supra note 137.
252
Interview with Michael McClanahan, supra note 70.
253
Interview with Michael McClanahan, supra note 70.
254
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
255
Interview with M. Christian Green, supra note 71.
256
Interview of Valencia Richardson, supra note 94.
257
Interview of Valencia Richardson, supra note 94.
258
Interview of Valencia Richardson, supra note 94.
259
See Roland Martin, Louisiana’s Democratic Party Crisis, Tenn. Pastor Survives Hamas-Israel Attack, No House Speaker, YouTube (Oct. 17, 2023), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_5x3px_3Rc.
260
Id.
261
See, e.g., Louisiana, The Am. Redistricting Project, https://thearp.org/state/louisiana/ (last visited Feb. 28, 2024).
262
See Fighting Louisiana’s Unnecessary Barriers for Re-enfranchised Voters (VOTE v. Ardoin), Campaign Legal Ctr., (May 1, 2023), https://campaignlegal.org/cases-actions/fighting-louisianas-unnecessary-barriers-re-enfranchised-voters-vote-v-ardoin.
263
See Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Support Of Motion for Special Election and Expedited Briefing Schedule, Nairne v. Ardoin, 3:22-cv-00178-SDD-SDJ (Feb. 13, 2024), https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2372024-02-13-Plaintiffs-memorandum-of-law-in-support-of-motion-for-special-election-and-expedited-briefing.pdf.
264
See, e.g., Allison Bruhl, A Full List of the Bills Gov. Edwards Vetoed, BRProud (Jul. 3, 2021), https://www.brproud.com/news/local-news/a-full-list-of-the-bills-gov-edwards-vetoed/.
265
Emma Simmons, Allison Bruhl, & Shannon Heckt, How Louisiana’s New 2025 Laws Will Affect Voting, Taxes, and More, BRProud (Dec. 31, 2024), https://www.brproud.com/news/louisiana-news/how-louisianas-new-2025-laws-will-affect-voting-taxes-and-more/.
266
See Raquel Centeno, Christian R. Grose, Nancy Hernandez, & Kayla Wolf, The Demobilizing Effect of Primary Electoral Institutions on Voters of Color (Apr. 22, 2021), https://ssrn.com/abstract=3831739 (finding Black independents in an open primary state are more likely to turn out to vote in a general election as compared to those in a closed primary state).
267
All data is sourced from the La. Sec. of State, Post Election Statistics – statewide, available at https://www.sos.la.gov/ElectionsAndVoting/Pages/PostElectionStatisticsStatewide.aspx

Volume IV

Why Geaux Vote? Racial Disparities in Louisiana Voter Turnout and Opportunities for Intervention

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