New Absentee Voting laws for Louisiana go into effect today. Joel Watson with the Secretary of State Office said the first of three new laws (Act 380) is to deter ballot harvesting and close a loophole in a previous law. He said a person can’t take more than one absentee ballot to the registrar’s office, by any means except if it’s for immediate family members.
“So, you can take a stack full of ballots and drop them off to the post office or bring them in person to the registrar of voters office,” said Watson.
This keeps an individual from possibly filling out multiple ballots and submitting a large number at one time.
The second law (Act 302) pertains to assisting voters, Watson said you can’t assist more than one person, who isn’t an immediate family member, with their absentee ballot. That’s because he said when you’re assisting a voter you could have undue influence on the individual.
“So, this prevents somebody from being able to go to multiple individuals, assisting multiple individuals, and having undue influence on our elections,” said Watson.
The third law (Act 317) also prevents the harvesting of ballots. Watson said no person, except for an immediate family member, can distribute an absentee application to any person who has not requested one. He said if an individual submits multiple requests for ballots, they know who will be receiving them.
“We want those voters who are getting those absentee ballots to remain undisturbed when they’re being able to vote so that they can choose who they want to vote for rather than having somebody try and go and convince them while they have that ballot out,” said Watson.
Watson said the new laws are ways to protect the most vulnerable voters and common-sense ways to ensure Louisiana elections remain in the Top Ten in the country for election integrity.
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