Louisiana primary
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Louisiana primary is the common term for
The system is used in the Louisiana general election for local, state, and congressional offices. Though strictly speaking it occurs during the general election and so is not a
Comparison with other voting models
The Louisiana primary is a two-round system.
The other popular version is the nonpartisan blanket primary (or top two primary) currently used in Washington and California. In both models, all candidates regardless of party identification run against each other in the first round, and (usually) the top two run against each other in a second round. The differences are:
- In the top two system there is always a second round even if the leader gets a simple majority.
- The first round in the Louisiana primary is held on or near election day in November and the runoff is about a month later.
The top two primary holds the second round on election day in November and holds the first round months earlier.
Example: Louisiana governor's race, 1991
First Ballot, October 19, 1991
Candidate | Affiliation | Support | Outcome |
Edwin Edwards | Democratic | 523,096 (33.8%) | Runoff |
David Duke | Republican | 491,342 (31.7%) | Runoff |
Buddy Roemer | Republican | 410,690 (26.5%) | Defeated |
Clyde Holloway
|
Republican | 82,683 (5.3%) | Defeated |
Sam Jones | Democratic | 11,847 (0.8%) | Defeated |
Ed Karst | No Party | 9,663 (0.6%) | Defeated |
Fred Dent | Democratic | 7,835 (0.5%) | Defeated |
Anne Thompson | Republican | 4,118 (0.3%) | Defeated |
Jim Crowley | Democratic | 4,000 (0.3%) | Defeated |
Albert Henderson Powell | Democratic | 2,053 (0.1%) | Defeated |
Ronnie Glynn Johnson | Democratic | 1,372 (0.1%) | Defeated |
Ken "Cousin Ken" Lewis | Democratic | 1,006 (0.1%) | Defeated |
Second Ballot, November 16, 1991
Candidate | Affiliation | Support | Outcome |
Edwin Edwards | Democratic | 1,057,031 (61.2%) | Elected |
David Duke | Republican | 671,009 (38.8%) | Defeated |
Despite Republicans collectively attaining a majority of the support in the 1st ballot, the Democratic candidate Edwards won decisively on the second ballot. Edwin Edwards' win is most likely attributed to the fact that David Duke was a former Grand Wizard of the
Party labels
The runoff frequently includes two candidates of the same party. Historically, the Democratic Party was dominant in Louisiana from the late 19th through much of the 20th century, especially after the state legislature
The only party labels originally permitted under the
Federal elections
The nonpartisan blanket election was never used for presidential primaries in Louisiana because national party rules forbid it. It has been used for congressional elections from 1978 to the present, with a brief interruption in 2008 and 2010.
Starting in 1978, the Louisiana legislature changed the rules for conducting US
The U.S. Supreme Court in Foster v. Love (1997) ruled that this system was in violation of federal law when used for congressional elections, since the federal law requires all members of Congress to be elected on the federal election day; thus, candidates who won in primaries earlier than the federal election day violated this law.
After the decision, Louisiana moved the congressional primary date to November and the run-off to December in order to keep the nonpartisan blanket format. The result was that any candidate who won a congressional race through a general election (run-off) lost seniority to those members elected in November on the national election day. Louisiana's freshmen members were assigned inferior office space because they were junior to members elected in November.
In May 2005, Louisiana passed a law moving the primary back to October, with provisions intended to follow federal law. In June 2006, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco signed Senate Bill No. 18[1] (later Act No. 560[2]) into law, which took effect in 2008. It returned Congressional races to the closed primary system.
In 2010, the legislature voted to revert federal elections to the nonpartisan blanket primary system with the passage of House Bill 292, which was signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal on June 25, 2010.[6] Since Louisiana's primary is virtually identical to the Washington state primary system, which was upheld by the US Supreme Court in Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party (2008), it appears to satisfy constitutional concerns.[7]
References
- ^ "Primary Elections by State: Louisiana". Openprimaries.org. Retrieved 2018-05-17.
- ^ "2017 Georgia Code :: Title 21 - Elections :: Chapter 2 - Elections and Primaries Generally :: Article 14 - Special Elections and Primaries Generally; Municipal Terms of Office :: § 21-2-540. Conduct of special elections generally". Justia Law. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
- ^ "Opinion, Editorials, Columns, Op-Ed, Letters to the Editor, Commentary - Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com".
- ^ "Biography of Roemer".
- ^ Political Party Registration Archived April 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "2010 Regular Session - Instrument Information". Archived from the original on 2010-08-12. Retrieved 2010-11-05.
- ^ "Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2010-01-07. Retrieved 2008-03-21.