Secretary of State-elect Nancy Landry
Secretary of State Nancy Landry said she’s extremely pleased with the 11 bills passed in the session to improve Louisiana’s election system. Even though the Bayou State is in the ranked in top ten for election integrity by the Heritage Foundation and number one in the South by the Electoral Integrity Project.
“When I was campaigning, I promised voters that I would work to make us number one in the nation in election integrity, and so I feel like these 11 bills will help us to get to number one,” said Landry.
Landry said even the Louisiana Legislative State Auditor gives the state’s election high marks.
Governor Jeff Landry is expected to sign all of the bills, including one that passed three times before, but former Governor John Bel Edwards vetoed them each time. She said the legislation allows them to further clean up the voter rolls when someone has been inactive for 10 years. It’s estimated that 160,000 people fall into that category.
“This will help us to determine if those people are still valid voters if they still want to remain on the voter rolls. And if they don’t respond to our canvas card then we will put them on the inactive voter list,” said Landry.
Inactive voters will still be able to vote and when they do, they’ll return to active status unless they fail to vote in two consecutive federal elections, then they are removed and will have to register to vote again.
When asked if the 11 bills would make it more difficult to vote, Landry believes the changes won’t create any burdens for voters.
“And it’s all commonsense measures that will improve people’s confidence in our elections and keep our voter rolls accurate and just ensure the continued integrity of our elections,” said Landry.
Landry said one of the bills allows them to check for citizenship when individuals register to vote in Louisiana.
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