WASHINGTON (AP) — Louisiana voters on Saturday will decide the fates of four proposed amendments to the state constitution, in the final statewide election of 2024.
The measures would change how Louisiana officials conduct oversight of judges, deliberate spending bills in the Legislature and deal with the properties of delinquent taxpayers.
Amendment No. 1 would revamp the process for investigating and disciplining judges for misconduct. It would expand the Judiciary Commission from nine to 14 members by adding five political appointees named by the House speaker, the Senate president and the governor. It would grant the Supreme Court the power to authorize an investigation of a judge or discipline a judge through a majority vote of the court.
Amendments 2 and 3 both would give legislators more time to craft, review and consider spending bills before having to vote.
Amendment No. 2 would require a 48-hour waiting period before a spending bill could be voted on and require that a written summary of proposed changes to the bill be distributed to each lawmaker at the start of that window. It was drafted in the wake of the 2023 legislative session, when lawmakers passed a $45 billion budget package in the final 30 minutes before adjournment with few details about what the bill included.
Amendment No. 3 would allow lawmakers to extend a regular session of the Legislature by up to six days to complete and pass a spending bill.
Amendment No. 4 would change how Louisiana handles sales of property where the owner is delinquent on tax payments. Under current law, such properties can be subject to a mandatory sale. The amendment would replace that system with a tax lien system.
The proposal is in response to a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a Minnesota county unconstitutionally took the property of a 94-year-old Minneapolis woman without paying "just compensation." After the decision, the nonpartisan Louisiana State Law Institute said in a report to the Legislature that current Louisiana law may violate that ruling.
Saturday’s proposals require a simple majority vote to become law.
Here’s a look at what to expect:
Election day
Polls close at 9 p.m. EST.
What’s on the ballot
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners for the four state constitutional amendments.
Who gets to vote
Any registered voter in Louisiana may participate.
Decision notes
Louisiana has 64 parishes, the largest of which are East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Tammany, Lafayette, Caddo, Calcasieu, Ouachita, Livingston and Tangipahoa. In partisan races, East Baton Rouge, Orleans and Caddo are the biggest of the state’s Democratic strongholds, while Jefferson, St. Tammany and the other large parishes are usually safe for Republicans.
Under Louisiana's primary system, candidates for races other than president appeared together on the same ballot in the Nov. 5 election regardless of party affiliation. In races where no candidate received a vote majority, the top two vote-getters would have advanced to Saturday's general election. That proved unnecessary this year because each contest had a winner who received more than 50% of the vote.
With no other statewide or congressional races on the ballot, turnout in Saturday’s election will likely see a steep drop-off from Nov. 5. The race for mayor of Baton Rouge may boost turnout in East Baton Rouge parish.
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
There are no automatic recounts in Louisiana. A voter may request and pay for a recount of absentee and early votes in an election for a ballot measure. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
What do turnout and advance vote look like
As of Nov. 1, there were more than 3 million registered voters in Louisiana. Of those, about 37% were registered as Democrats and about 35% were registered as Republicans. The remaining 28% were registered as independents or with other parties.
Turnout in the presidential election was about 66% of registered voters. It was about 70% in 2020 but fell to about 16% in the subsequent December election, when a proposed constitutional amendment was the only statewide contest on the ballot. A ballot measure put before voters in December 2022 had a turnout of about 14% of registered voters.
Votes cast before Election Day comprised about 33% of the total votes in both the 2019 gubernatorial election as well as the December 2022 election.
As of Monday, nearly 94,000 ballots had been cast before the Saturday election, about 44% from Democrats and 41% from Republicans.
How long does vote-counting usually take?
In the Nov. 5 election, the AP first reported results at 9:06 p.m. EST, or six minutes after polls closed. The election night tabulation ended at 11:56 p.m. EST with about 99% of total votes counted.
Are we there yet?
As of Saturday, there will be 696 days until the 2026 midterm elections and 1,431 days until the 2028 general election.
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Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
