The switch in a couple of years to closed primary elections in Louisiana for all federal offices and select plenary bodies stands little chance of expanding any time soon.
After all sorts of machinations, the recent special session of the Legislature added partially closed primaries for election to all federal offices, save presidential preference primaries that remain fully closed – meaning voters only may participate in the party primary matching the label under which they registered, although parties have the option of allowing unaffiliated voters to participate as well – and for the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Public Service Commission, and Supreme Court. These partially closed primaries are like full closed primaries except parties cannot prevent unaffiliated voters from participating in their particular primary if so chosen by a such a voter when accessing a ballot.
This will have zero immediate effect, since provisions don’t kick in until 2026, so that means the Supreme Court District 2, Public Service Commission District 2, and House of Representatives seat elections scheduled for this year, plus any special elections that may occur for these or the rest of the Supreme Court or PSC or BESE or either Senate seat from now until the end of 2025 will occur under the existing blanket primary rules. After that, partially closed primaries will kick in for all of these, held on the March municipal primary date.
The law also provides for runoff election if a primary doesn’t produce a majority winner. That would occur on the April municipal general date. Months then would pass before the general election, which for BESE and special elections for any of the others would be on the October state primary date, and for all others and BESE special elections on the November primary date. If no candidate receives a majority in these contests, then the runoff for BESE and special elections for any of the others would be on the November federal primary election date, and for all others and BESE special elections on the December federal general election date.
Obviously, this will create some weirdness. Say you are an unaffiliated voter living in Shreveport and 2026 rolls around. In March, you’ll face a ballot with party nominees for PSC and Congress and may have to go back to vote on these in April; for these, if you vote you pick one party’s ballot, which could be different from March to April. Then, in November you vote for PSC and Congress as well as things like mayor, district attorney, and school board – and then again in December if runoffs present themselves. Theoretically, you could end up for Congress or PSC voting for four candidates all with different affiliations – a major party candidate in the primary, one from the other major party in a runoff, then a minor party candidate in the general election, and then maybe a no party candidate in a runoff. In fact, you could end up, for example, voting for somebody for Congress in the spring who doesn’t win the nomination, then voting for him in the fall because he runs for mayor.
Worse, it can create confusion for voters. Say you are an unaffiliated voter living in Kenner and 2026 rolls around. In March, you’ll vote in city elections where all candidate regardless of affiliation run together, but also may have to pick a Senate and House candidate in a primary. So, you have to choose a primary ballot for those office then mash it together with a city ballot, while understanding on election day your choices for city offices is wide open but for Congress it’s restricted to a party that you have to choose. And if you prefer a Republican for the House or Senate and a Democrat for the other, you can’t. (Not that this can’t work; Monrovians long have gotten used to closed presidential preference primaries on their March ballots coexisting with blanket primaries for mayor and city councilors.)
And if you think this is bad, consider what the Jefferson Parish Registrar of Voters and the Secretary of State’s office will have to do for Kennerites. For voters signed up for mail ballots for any of the newly affected offices, they will have to mail out to registered Republicans two separate ballots, one confined to party; similar with Democrats but obviously with a different party ballot; to unaffiliated voters both party ballots and the blanket primary ballot, and to minor party registrants just the blanket primary ballot. In the case of unaffiliated voters, what happens if they return both party ballots filled out (nothing in state law during the session was changed to deal with situations like this)?
All of this will be used by opponents to portray the changes in a negative light. Now that the minor alterations made it into law, legislators lukewarm to hostile about closed primaries will declare at least a few years should pass before making any further changes, and then they’ll point out the increased voter confusion, bureaucracy, and costs associated that will add to resistance to expansion of closed primaries to other offices (while selectively omitting that most of the greater bureaucracy and higher cost will come from having a schizoid system, compared to the uniformity of all elections having fully closed primaries). And the start two years from now effectively adds two years before any further changes can come about.
This means that it will be years, and perhaps over a decade before any more progress occurs with closed primary adoption, which is the most fundamental systemic change Louisiana could make to stem its history of policy failure. A lot can happen between now and then that not only creates optics that can sour policy-makers and the public on the idea, but also even could spur reversal. It’s unfortunate that policy-makers couldn’t strike comprehensively while the iron was hot, because it may be a long time before they get another chance.
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