State’s governor has ordered congressional primary halted until state can redraw districts and dilute Black vote
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit on behalf of Louisiana voting rights groups on Friday, asking a state court to block the state’s governor, Jeff Landry, and secretary of state, Nancy Landry, from suspending congressional elections.
Landry suspended the state’s congressional primary election on Thursday – even after early voting had begun – to enact new districts for the 2026 election. The move came after the supreme court’s 6-3 decision in the Louisiana v Callais case on Wednesday, which invalidated swaths of the Voting Rights Act and declared that a Louisiana congressional district with a majority-nonwhite voting population violated equal protection provisions of the US constitution.
Other races on the ballot, as well as votes for amendments to Louisiana’s constitution, will continue, according to Landry’s order. While the congressional race will remain on the ballot, its votes will not be counted, Landry ordered.
The League of Women Voters of Louisiana, the Louisiana state conference of the NAACP, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, and three individual voters filed suit in a state court in Baton Rouge on Friday, seeking a temporary restraining order. They argued that an order delaying an election had only previously been issued “due to natural disasters or similar emergencies that posed threats to health and safety”, and that a supreme court decision did not constitute state of emergency under Louisiana law.
