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

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Raw Story

May 5, 2026 9:30AM ET


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

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

A day after the ruling, Landry suspended Louisiana’s party primary elections for its U.S. House seats, although absentee voting was already underway and early voting began two days later. The governor’s order pushes the U.S. House primary elections to July 15 unless the legislature selects another date. Other races in the May 16 party primaries are going forward as scheduled, including the U.S. Senate contest. Secretary of State Nancy Landry, who is not related to the governor, has said the U.S. House races will remain on ballots, but any votes cast for candidates will not be counted.

Since Gov. Landry suspended U.S House elections, several Democratic candidates and civil rights advocates have urged voters to continue casting ballots in those races. At least four separate legal challenges to the governor’s order had been filed as of Monday. “It’s suspended for now. It doesn’t mean it’s suspended for tomorrow,” U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, said Monday during a speech to the Baton Rouge Press Club. He currently holds the 6th Congressional District seat that the Supreme Court declared illegal.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/42000-louisianians-voted-absentee-before-gov-landry-suspended-us-house-primaries/

---

There was a reason why the VRA was pushed so much. We are seeing the reason playing out in real time right now.

[republianmushroom]

1. Thank you SCOUS.

[Attilatheblond]

2. One wonders: How many absentee ballots have already gone out to military personnell

and will those people be able to receive new ballots in time to vote after this attack on their rights? How many of those affected are black?

[Puppyjive]

4. I always voted absentee in the military

I just wonder how many of the military voters from Lousiana are maga? I'm finding a lot of military are trump voters. They've been brainwashed by fox news. So this manipulation may be hurting the republicans and they don't even realize it.

[Attilatheblond]

7. A hopeful theory

But I disapprove of negating ANYBODY'S ballot.

[Solly Mack]

3. Jim Crow and the Dred SCOTTus

[Botany]

5. Stopping blacks, students, and democrats from voting is in the G.O.P. playbook.

William Rehnquist did it in Arizona in the 1960s, 90,000 blacks were removed from voting in Florida
in 2000, in Ohio something like 250,00 voters were forced to vote provisional ballots in 2004, millions
of African Americans were removed from voting by interstate cross check in 2016, and in 2024 millions
of voters were removed from voting by all kinds of crap.

Paul Weyrick:

Weyrich was a supporter of voter suppression, saying in 1980: "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

[KS Toronado]

6. I'm afraid we'll see more of these kind of shenanigans

coming from other red States prior to the Nov election. Hope we have some plans in place.

[Multichromatic]

8. Remember... Republicans aren't racist!