Despite a colorful political history that includes numerous and embarrassing cases of vote-buying and headline-grabbing election shenanigans, Louisiana has enjoyed a run of election years without any major black eyes, writes Jeremy Alford in his latest column.
And some have taken notice, he says, like the Pew Charitable Trusts.
“Its latest state-by-state elections performance index, which reviewed the races from 2008, 2010 and 2012, ranks Louisiana 18th overall,” Alford notes. “The trusts give scores to each state based on several indicators, such as turnout, voting wait time and data completeness, to calculate the index.”
The effort to overhaul the state’s election system goes back generations, Alford notes, but is most recently rooted in in the GeauxVote.com comprehensive web portal launched by former secretary of state and current Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne. The movement was continued by current Secretary of State Tom Schedler, who launched a mobile GeauxVote app.
“It’s clear that access to election information has improved significantly. But what about access to voting?” Alford asks. “Louisiana was one of the first states with online registration and new drivers are even pre-registered to vote.”
Despite these advances, some argue the state still has ground to cover to make further progress, Alford writes. Implementing systems that making mail ballots more widely available and once again expanding the early voting timeframe are starts.
“Nonetheless, there remains a perception problem to fight,” Alford writes, pointing to Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who said in Monroe earlier this month that Democrats were being allowed to vote in recent elections even if they weren’t registered.
Secretary of State Tom Schedler fired off a terse response slamming the comments and Nungesser later said his remarks were taken out of context.
Alford says the exchange between Nungesser and Schedler provides a good opportunity to once again review the state’s election system.
“Now, as far as the quality of the elected officials who are chosen through this process,” Alford says, “that’s another matter entirely.”
Read the full column.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
