Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry canceled congressional primaries that were already in progress. Over 100,000 absentee ballots had already gone out. Early in-person voting had just started. And Landry signed an executive order saying none of those votes will count. The races are still on the ballot the state just decided your choices don’t matter.
This happened within 48 hours of the Supreme Court gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by striking down Louisiana’s congressional map. Trump immediately jumped on Truth Social to thank Landry for moving “so quickly.” That tells you everything about what this actually is.
The legal argument against this isn’t complicated. You cannot cancel a federal election after voting has already begun. The governor doesn’t have that authority Congress sets the rules for federal elections, not state executives. The Brennan Center said Louisiana wasn’t even legally able to halt the primaries in the first place. But the political motivation is pretty obvious stopping the election buys time for Republicans to redraw maps in a way that’s expected to wipe out at least one of Louisiana’s two majority-Black congressional districts.
Lawsuits are flying and courts are moving fast, but nothing has stopped it yet. One woman who has voted in every election since 1968 showed up yesterday and cast her ballot anyway. “If they don’t count it, that’s their problem.”
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