'Vote your entire ballot': Lawsuits challenge Landry's authority to suspend election amid voter confusion
Louisianians are heading to the polls to submit their ballot early for the May 16 election, but Governor Landry's decision to suspend the Congressional election is causing confusion and pushback. With lawsuits now filed, it's a legal dispute raising questions about whether Landry had the authority to issue the halt.
Governor Landry's order came after the Supreme Court ruled the district map was an unconstitutional gerrymander based on race. The ruling came down two days before early voting began and absentee ballots were already being returned. Critics argue that attempting to halt or alter the election process at this point is both irresponsible and potentially harmful to voters.
"Your election in Louisiana has already started," Sarah Brannon, deputy director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said in a panel discussion Monday. "The level of voter confusion and disenfranchisement is unimaginable. It’s extreme what they’re doing."
"This is an attempt to attack Black participation, political participation, it is an attempt to disenfranchise our voters and it's an attempt to use the machinery of law to do that," Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said. "This is reconstruction era tactics: changing elections midway, canceling elections, eliminating seats for folks who have already been elected, trying to silence voters, trying to eliminate participation, all a part of this larger strategy that is really important for us to understand all happens only against the backdrop of Callais."
https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/local/local-politics/vote-your-entire-ballot-lawsuits-challenge-landrys-authority-to-suspend-election-amid-voter-confusion/289-33df7cb0-95d6-4c15-8c35-c9e898203d2c