Threat Tier: 3 — MODERATE Last Researched: September 7, 2026

Data currency notice: Election law, official contact information, and legislative status change frequently. Verify all information within 30 days of use.

Read This First: Louisiana’s November 3 Ballot Is Not a Normal General Election

Louisiana is running a two-round federal election this fall, and the two rounds are on different systems. This is the single most important thing for a Louisiana voter to understand, and it is the reason this playbook’s threat tier moved up.

Three ways a Louisiana voter loses their U.S. House vote this year without doing anything wrong:

1. Assuming November 3 is “the general” and that the House race is over. For most districts it will not be. If no candidate exceeds 50% on November 3, the seat is decided on December 12.
2. Assuming there is a party nominee to vote for. There is not. Under Act 7 of the 2026 Regular Session (HB 842), U.S. Representative is not a closed-party office for the November and December cycle. Every candidate, regardless of party, is on your November 3 ballot.
3. Missing the December registration and ballot deadlines, which are separate and earlier than most people expect — see the deadline tables below.

You are also very likely voting in a different congressional district than you did in 2024. Louisiana enacted a new congressional map on May 29, 2026 (SB 121). Check your district on your sample ballot before you go.

Recent Developments (Entry Point for Updates)

• September 4–7, 2026: The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay Judge Indira Talwani’s September 4 preliminary injunction against the USPS mail-ballot rule, and separately appealed to the First Circuit. That application is pending and the Court could act at any time. As of September 7, 2026, the rule is blocked and cannot be enforced for the November 3 election — but treat that as provisional. See “The USPS mail-ballot rule” below.
• August 8, 2026: Candidate qualifying closed for Louisiana’s redrawn congressional districts. Ten candidates qualified in the 6th District alone. Qualifying ran August 5–7 under the rescheduled calendar.
• August 5, 2026: The NVRA 90-day quiet period began. Systematic voter-removal programs must stop 90 days before a federal election. Any systematic purge in Louisiana between now and November 3 is presumptively unlawful and immediately actionable.
• July 23, 2026: Rep. Cleo Fields (D) announced he will not seek re-election to Congress in any district, after the new map dissolved the majority-Black 6th District he held. He is instead running for Louisiana Senate District 14.
• June 2, 2026: Gov. Landry signed SB 319, which will eliminate the voter-ID affidavit option and replace it with a conditional ballot that only counts if the voter brings documentation to the registrar within two days. It takes effect July 1, 2027 — the affidavit option is still available for the November 3 and December 12, 2026 elections.
• May 29, 2026: Landry signed SB 121, the new congressional map, which dissolves the state’s second majority-Black district and is expected to add a fifth Republican seat. Litigation over whether the new map itself complies with Callais is continuing, but the state will use this map in November (National Law Review, August 12, 2026).
• May 14, 2026: Landry signed HB 842 (Act 7), moving the 2026 U.S. House races from the May 16 closed party primary to an open primary on November 3 with a December 12 general, and moving candidate qualifying to August 5–7. Louisiana returns to semi-closed party primaries for U.S. House in future cycles.
• April 30, 2026: Landry issued an executive order suspending the U.S. House primaries already under way. More than 250,000 votes had already been cast and over 100,000 absentee ballots had already been mailed. House votes on the May 16 ballot were counted for nothing, and the cancelled congressional votes were shielded from public-records law. Two emergency lawsuits — Garcia v. Landry (M.D. La.) and a state suit by the League of Women Voters of Louisiana, the Louisiana NAACP and the Power Coalition — both failed at the TRO stage. 19th JDC Judge Chip Moore wrote that “the governor has the authority to suspend the upcoming election to protect the electoral process.”
• April 29, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais 6–3, affirming the injunction against Louisiana’s two-majority-Black-district map and rewriting the standard for race-conscious redistricting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This is Louisiana’s own case. Its national consequences are covered below.
• April 14, 2026: AG Liz Murrill sued the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (Louisiana v. EAC, W.D. La.) to force proof-of-citizenship language onto the federal voter registration form. Voting-rights groups have intervened as defendants. Litigation is ongoing.

State Threat Profile

Louisiana is a Republican trifecta under Gov. Jeff Landry. The threat to Louisiana voters this cycle is not primarily a new restriction on who may vote — it is administrative churn on a scale no other state matched in 2026, layered on top of one of the country’s tightest mail-ballot regimes.

What changed and why it matters at the ballot box. Louisiana switched to closed party primaries for the first time in 2026, held a Senate primary under that system, then — one day after Callais — suspended a federal election already in progress, voided the congressional votes of hundreds of thousands of people who had already cast them, redrew every congressional district, changed the U.S. House back to an open primary, and moved that election five and a half months later into a two-round November/December structure. A voter who did everything right in May had their House vote discarded. A voter who is confused in November may lose it again by not returning for December. Confusion of this magnitude is a ballot-access problem, not merely a political one, and it is the core of Louisiana’s tier.

**The Callais harm itself is chiefly representational, and we say so plainly.** Callais did not make it harder for any Louisiana voter to cast a ballot or have it counted. It changed whose vote can add up to a representative — Black Louisianans are roughly a third of the state’s population and, under the new map, have one congressional district of six instead of two. That is a severe harm to political representation, and it is the reason the case matters nationally; it is not, on its own, a ballot-access threat. The tier moved on the administrative wreckage the ruling set off in this state, not on the doctrinal holding.

The mail-vote regime is unusually unforgiving. Louisiana requires an excuse to vote absentee, does not permit ballot drop boxes at all, requires a witness signature on the return envelope, and requires the registrar to have your voted ballot in hand by 4:30 p.m. the day before Election Day — with no postmark grace period. Only four states require a witness signature to return a mail ballot. Louisiana is one of them.

Roll maintenance is aggressive and the numbers are large. Roughly 455,000–500,000 Louisiana registrants sit on the inactive list, an increase driven by a 2024 law letting the Secretary of State move voters to inactive status when their address cannot be verified and they have not voted in over a decade. Secretary Landry has been clear that inactive voters may still vote after confirming their address at the polls. Separately, Louisiana was the first state in the nation to run its voter file against the federal SAVE database (September 2025), a review that flagged 390 registrants — 0.01% of the roll — as possible noncitizens, with the Secretary acknowledging some findings could be erroneous.

Louisiana’s official legal posture is adverse to its own mail voters and to its own voters’ data privacy. The state is one of 12 Republican-led intervenor states supporting the Trump administration in the USPS mail-ballot litigation. It was not sued by DOJ for voter data — because, according to Protect Democracy (June 11, 2026), it is among roughly 18 states that voluntarily handed DOJ their unredacted voter rolls. Louisiana voters therefore have no state lawsuit shielding their birthdates, partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, unlike voters in the 25 plaintiff jurisdictions.

What is genuinely solid in Louisiana. In-person voting works well and should be the default recommendation: seven days of early voting at registrar offices, a photo-ID requirement with a still-available affidavit fallback through the end of 2026, a real statutory bar on stationing law enforcement at polling places, a 600-foot electioneering-free zone, and a mandatory notice-and-cure process for defective mail ballots. Louisiana also has no proof-of-citizenship requirement in operation for the 2026 midterms.

Key Officials

All three verified as current officeholders as of September 7, 2026.

• Governor: Jeff Landry (R) — suspended the U.S. House primaries by executive order on April 30, 2026, and signed both the new congressional map (SB 121) and the schedule change (HB 842). Also serves as the President’s special envoy to Greenland.
• Secretary of State: Nancy Landry (R, no relation to the Governor) — chief election official. Certified the “electoral emergency” under La. R.S. 18:401.1(B) that was the legal predicate for the Governor’s suspension order. Led the nation in running the state voter file against the federal SAVE database.
• Attorney General: Liz Murrill (R) — defended the election suspension in court, defended the state in Callais, and is the plaintiff in Louisiana v. EAC seeking to put a proof-of-citizenship requirement on the federal registration form.

Your U.S. Senators

There is no “SAVE Act vote” to attribute to any senator. The SAVE America Act passed the U.S. House in February 2026 and has never received a Senate passage vote. What Louisiana does have is a sponsorship record:

• Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) sponsored the April 23, 2026 motion to waive Budget Act rules so the SAVE America Act’s core — documentary proof of citizenship to register, plus a narrow photo-ID list to vote — could be attached to the filibuster-proof reconciliation package. The motion failed 48–50, with Republicans Collins, Murkowski, Tillis and McConnell joining every Democrat present. This is the closest the bill has come to becoming law.
• Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was eliminated in the May 16 Republican primary, finishing third behind Julia Letlow and John Fleming. His seat is on the November 3 ballot.

Voter Defense Basics

For Every Voter

1. Check your registration now — and check your district, because it changed.

Roughly one in seven Louisiana registrants is on the inactive list. Inactive voters can still vote, but must complete an Address Confirmation Card at the polls first. Do it before Election Day and save yourself the friction. Your congressional district may also be different from 2024. → https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/ — check status, district, sample ballot, polling place → Or use the free GeauxVote app, which shows your sample ballot two weeks before each election

2. Registration deadlines — there are two elections, so there are two sets.

3. Know your ID requirements — and know the affidavit option still exists this year.

Bring a Louisiana driver’s license, Louisiana special ID card, U.S. military ID with name and photo, or other generally recognized photo ID with your name and signature.

If you do not have photo ID, you may still vote a regular ballot by signing an affidavit at the polls after correctly answering identifying questions. This option survives through the December 12, 2026 election. SB 319, signed June 2, 2026, abolishes it and replaces it with a two-day conditional-ballot cure — but not until July 1, 2027. Do not let anyone tell you the affidavit is gone this year.

A free Louisiana special identification card is available from the Office of Motor Vehicles if you present your voter registration information card.

4. There is no proof-of-citizenship requirement in force. If you are told otherwise, push back.

Louisiana passed a documentary proof-of-citizenship law in 2024 (SB 436) with a January 1, 2025 effective date, but the Secretary of State has never published the list of acceptable documents and the requirement has not been implemented (Brennan Center, April 2026; Ballotpedia, as of July 2026; Center for American Progress, June 2026). The law is under challenge in League of Women Voters of Louisiana v. Landry, and the state is separately suing the EAC to extend it to the federal form. You may also register using the federal mail registration form, which does not require documentary proof of citizenship.

If a registrar or poll worker demands citizenship documents from you, call 866-OUR-VOTE before you leave.

5. Early voting is your best option — it is short, so plan for it.

No excuse is needed to vote early. Early voting happens at designated locations in your parish — find them through the Voter Portal, not at your Election Day precinct.

6. Absentee voting: Louisiana’s rules are strict. Read all of this before you rely on mail.

You need a qualifying excuse. Accepted reasons include age 65 or older, disability, temporary absence from the parish, working offshore, students and faculty living outside their parish of registration, clergy assigned outside their parish, hospitalization, involuntary confinement, incarceration (not on a felony sentence), sequestered jurors, and military or overseas status. Military and overseas voters need no excuse.

Five things that get Louisiana mail ballots rejected:

• A missing witness signature. Your return envelope must be signed by you and one witness who is at least 18. One person may witness only one ballot per election. This is not optional and it is the most common Louisiana-specific rejection cause.
• A missing mother’s maiden name on the certificate.
• Arriving late. There is no postmark grace period. A ballot that arrives on Election Day is too late. Received by 4:30 p.m. the day before — that is the whole rule.
• Assuming a drop box exists. Louisiana does not permit ballot drop boxes anywhere in the state.
• Having someone else deliver it. Only you or an immediate family member may hand-deliver your ballot to the registrar, and no one but immediate family may deliver more than one ballot per election. A family member delivering for you must sign a statement certifying the relationship.

You have a cure right, but the window is brutally short. The registrar must notify you by mail — and by phone or email if they have your number — if your certificate is missing your signature, the witness signature, or your mother’s maiden name. To cure it, you must appear in person at the registrar’s office by 4:30 p.m. the day before the election. That is the same deadline as the ballot receipt deadline. If your ballot arrives on the last day, there is effectively no time to cure it. Return your ballot at least a week early so the cure window is real.

Track your absentee ballot’s status at https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/.

7. The USPS mail-ballot rule — and the advice that works either way.

Executive Order 14399 (March 31, 2026) directs USPS to refuse delivery of mail ballots to voters not on new USPS-approved “enrolled mail voter” lists, with barcode and envelope-preapproval requirements for election officials. The implementing final rule was published August 26, 2026.

As of September 7, 2026, that rule is blocked by Judge Talwani’s September 4 preliminary injunction, which covers the November 3 election. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to stay that injunction and the application is pending — the Court could act at any time. (The June 25 injunction that earlier news coverage described was vacated on August 26; it is not what is protecting mail voters now.) Military and overseas voters are exempt from the rule, and it does not apply to primaries.

Louisiana is one of 12 states that intervened in support of the administration and appealed the August 11 injunction. Your state government’s legal position is adverse to your mail ballot.

The advice that survives either outcome, and that Louisiana’s own rules already demand:

• Vote in person during early voting if you possibly can. In Louisiana this is the single most robust option — it bypasses USPS entirely, requires no excuse, and needs no witness.
• If you must vote absentee, request immediately — there is no start date for applying — and return it at least ten days early, especially in rural parishes.
• Hand-delivery to your parish registrar bypasses USPS completely. You or an immediate family member may do this. There are no drop boxes, so the registrar’s office is the only drop-off point.

8. Provisional ballots in Louisiana count only for federal offices.

This is unusual and voters get caught by it. If your name is not in the precinct register, poll commissioners should first try a Precinct Register Correction (PRC) form, which lets you vote a full regular ballot. Only if a PRC is not available do you get a provisional ballot — and a Louisiana provisional ballot is counted only for U.S. Senate and U.S. Representative, never for state or local races or propositions.

To have it counted, you must be a registered voter in that parish, and you must certify in writing on the ballot that you are eligible. Vote in your own precinct and parish — a provisional ballot cast in the wrong parish will not count. Keep the provisional ballot number you are given; you can check the result seven days later through the Secretary of State’s provisional voter search.

9. Federal agents at polling places — what is known, and what Louisiana law says.

No deployment has been announced. Do not act as though one has. Here is the verified picture as of September 7, 2026:

• Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine wrote to Sen. Slotkin (released early September 2026) that the Joint Force “has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections,” nor to seize ballots or voting machines.
• DHS has given no definitive written policy. A DHS official told election officials in a February 26, 2026 virtual meeting that ICE will not be stationed at polling places — but that verbal assurance has not been reduced to writing and has not been repeated. White House Press Secretary Leavitt later declined to rule out ICE presence near polling places. Rep. Krishnamoorthi demanded a definitive DHS policy statement on September 4, 2026. DHS refers to a “specific threat” standard it has not defined.
• 18 U.S.C. § 592 makes it a federal crime to bring armed federal troops to a polling place.
• Louisiana law is on your side here. Under La. R.S. 18:428(A), law enforcement officers shall not be stationed at polling places on election day. Commissioners or the clerk of court may summon officers to preserve order or protect election officials; officers may also be present if they routinely provide security for the building. In every case they may not interfere with the conduct of the election, the voters, or the election officials, and they are subject only to the orders of the precinct commissioners. Law enforcement officers may not serve as commissioners or as poll watchers.
• Firearms are prohibited in Louisiana polling places on Election Day, including for concealed-carry permit holders. The only exception is peace officers as defined in La. R.S. 40:2402(3)(a) performing official duties.
• Louisiana has not enacted a law specifically barring federal immigration agents from polling sites, as New Mexico and several other states did in 2026.

If anyone in or near a polling place makes you feel unsafe or discourages you from voting, that is voter intimidation. Call 866-OUR-VOTE immediately and stay in line.

10. Practical Election Day mechanics.

• Polls: 6 a.m.–8 p.m. on November 3 (Tuesday hours); 7 a.m.–8 p.m. on December 12 (Saturday hours). Anyone in line at 8 p.m. has the right to vote. Stay in line.
• Louisiana uses touchscreen machines. You insert a voter card, make selections, and nothing is final until you press “CAST YOUR BALLOT.” Review the screen before you press it.
• There is a six-minute time limit at the machine, or 20 minutes if you need assistance or are using the audio keypad.
• 600-foot campaign-free zone around every polling place entrance. Do not wear or carry anything advocating for or against a candidate, proposition or party on the ballot.
• Voters who cannot read, or who have a physical disability or visual impairment, have a right to assistance in voting.

11. Hurricane season overlaps this election. November 3 falls in the tail of hurricane season, and Louisiana has a history of storm disruption to election administration. If a storm is forecast, vote early — do not leave yourself dependent on Election Day. The Governor can suspend or reschedule an election on the Secretary of State’s certification of an emergency under La. R.S. 18:401.1(B); as 2026 demonstrated, that authority is real and has been used.

12. Save these numbers before Election Day.

For Organizers and Lawyers

1. The two-round structure is the biggest turnout-protection problem in the state. Louisiana’s December 12 U.S. House general will decide most congressional seats at a fraction of November turnout, on a Saturday, five weeks later, with its own registration deadlines (November 12 in person/mail, November 21 online) that fall before many voters will even have absorbed the November 3 results. Build the December 12 reminder into every November contact. Assume a large share of November voters do not know a second round exists.

2. Voter education must correct a specific, predictable misconception. Voters who followed the closed-primary rollout in early 2026 were told to check their party registration. For U.S. House on November 3 party registration is irrelevant — it is an open primary and every candidate is on every voter’s ballot. For the U.S. Senate race the same day, it is a general election between two nominees. Explaining both on one ballot is the core messaging task.

3. The NVRA 90-day quiet period is a present, usable tool — not a future posture. It began August 5, 2026. Under NVRA § 8(c)(2)(A), systematic programs to remove ineligible voters must have stopped. Given Louisiana’s inactive-list activity and its SAVE-database screening, request parish-level and statewide list-maintenance records now and treat any systematic removal activity occurring inside the window as presumptively unlawful and immediately actionable.

4. Work the inactive list before the deadlines, not on Election Day. With roughly 455,000–500,000 registrants inactive, address-confirmation outreach is the highest-yield ballot-protection work available in Louisiana this cycle. Inactive voters can be restored online, in person at the registrar, or at the polls — but doing it in advance removes a friction point at a moment when people walk away. Note the removal mechanic: inactive voters are dropped after a grace period spanning two federal general elections without contact.

5. Absentee compliance assistance is high-value here. The witness-signature requirement, the mother’s-maiden-name field, the no-drop-box rule, the one-ballot hand-delivery limit, and the day-before receipt deadline are all distinctively Louisiana rejection points. The cure right exists but requires an in-person appearance at the registrar by 4:30 p.m. the day before the election — so the practical intervention is getting ballots returned early enough that the cure window is usable at all. Consider organizing rides to registrar offices for hand-delivery.

**6. Post-Callais, the fight moves to local government — and Louisiana is where it starts. Louisiana’s own case eliminated Section 2 as an enforceable check on maps that dilute minority voting strength. About two-thirds of historical vote-dilution cases were local** — school boards, police juries, parish councils, at-large systems. Louisiana has more at-large and multi-member local bodies exposed to this shift than most states, and Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis — himself a Callais-line litigant — has flagged the local dimension publicly. Monitor local redistricting and at-large-conversion proposals now; state constitutional provisions and state-court doctrine are the remaining tools, since the federal one is gone.

7. Congressional map litigation is still live but will not change November. The Callais plaintiffs have asked the three-judge panel in Callais v. Landry (W.D. La., Monroe) to find that even the new map relies too heavily on race — a theory that would put Louisiana’s last remaining majority-Black district in jeopardy. A June 17 hearing was cancelled and the question was deferred. The state will use the SB 121 map for November 3 and December 12. Plan for it; litigate the next cycle. Separately, the successful Callais challengers moved on June 25, 2026 for $2.2 million in fees and expenses.

8. Voter data: Louisiana is unprotected, and voters should know it. Louisiana was not sued by DOJ because it complied. Per Protect Democracy, Louisiana is among roughly 18 states that turned over unredacted voter rolls. Nationally, DOJ has not won a single one of its 31 suits against 30 states and DC — 23 have been dismissed on the merits, and no court at district or appellate level has ruled for DOJ. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal in Michigan and denied en banc review on August 14, 2026. Common Cause v. DOJ (D.D.C.) is pending. Louisiana voters seeking a remedy have to look to that case or to state-law claims, not to a suit their own AG brought.

9. Election observers. Certified poll watchers are permitted; each candidate may have one watcher and one alternate at each precinct where their office is on the ballot. Watchers must be qualified Louisiana voters, must not be candidates, must not be entitled to voting assistance, and must not be law enforcement officers. Prioritize precincts in the redrawn districts and in the Baton Rouge and Shreveport areas, where district lines moved most.

10. Legal resources: → ACLU of Louisiana: laaclu.org → Power Coalition for Equity and Justice: powercoalition.org → League of Women Voters of Louisiana: lwvla.org → Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP → Legal Defense Fund (LDF): naacpldf.org → Campaign Legal Center: campaignlegal.org → Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights / Election Protection: 866-OUR-VOTE

Key Contacts and Resources

Sources

1. Louisiana Secretary of State, “Election dates” — November 3, 2026 and December 12, 2026 milestone dates, registration deadlines, absentee request and receipt deadlines, qualifying periods. sos.la.gov/elections-voting/election-dates (retrieved September 7, 2026).
2. Louisiana Secretary of State, “Voting in Louisiana / Ways to Vote” — ID requirements and affidavit option, absentee excuses, return methods, hand-delivery limits, cure process, early voting schedule, poll hours, 600-foot zone. sos.la.gov/elections-voting/ways-to-vote (retrieved September 7, 2026).
3. Louisiana Secretary of State, “Provisional Voting FAQs” — provisional ballots apply to federal offices only; Precinct Register Correction. sos.la.gov/elections-voting/provisional-voting-faqs (retrieved September 7, 2026).
4. Louisiana Secretary of State, “2026 Schedule of Elections” (revised July 2026), elections-calendar-2026.pdf.
5. U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana v. Callais, decided April 29, 2026 (6–3).
6. SCOTUSblog, “In major Voting Rights Act case, Supreme Court strikes down redistricting map challenged as racially discriminatory,” April 29, 2026.
7. Campaign Legal Center, “The U.S. Supreme Court Has Eviscerated the Voting Rights Act — What’s Next?”, April 30, 2026.
8. Governing, “Supreme Court Voting Rights Ruling Will Reshape Local Power,” May 4, 2026 (local-government consequences; Commissioner Davante Lewis).
9. Office of the Governor of Louisiana, “Governor Jeff Landry Suspends Only U.S. House Primary Elections Following Supreme Court Ruling,” April 30, 2026.
10. AP, “Louisiana congressional primaries suspended after Supreme Court ruling,” April 30, 2026.
11. NPR, “Louisiana U.S. House primaries are suspended after VRA ruling,” April 30, 2026 (Secretary Landry statement; absentee ballots already mailed).
12. WAFB, “Lawsuit targets Louisiana’s suspended House primaries,” May 1, 2026 (Garcia v. Landry, M.D. La.; La. R.S. 18:401.1(B) certification).
13. NOLA.com, “Landry’s order suspending elections spurs legal challenges,” May 2, 2026 (TRO denials; Judge Chip Moore ruling).
14. PBS NewsHour, “Louisiana senate passes new U.S. House map that would eliminate majority-Black district,” May 14, 2026 (250,000 votes already cast; new schedule; qualifying period).
15. KALB / Louisiana Secretary of State release, “Election date confirmed for Louisiana’s 2026 U.S. House races,” May 14, 2026 (Act 7; November 3 open primary, December 12 general).
16. Ballotpedia, “State of Election Policy Legislation 2026 Mid-Year Report,” updated August 27, 2026 (HB 842 signed May 14; SB 121 signed May 29; SB 319 contents and July 1, 2027 effective date; 20 Louisiana election bills enacted).
17. Voting Rights Lab, “The Markup: Voter ID bills are on the move,” June 15, 2026 (SB 319 eliminates the affidavit option).
18. NOLA.com, “Louisiana Legislature could tighten voter ID laws,” April 21, 2026 (SB 319 mechanics and document lists).
19. National Law Review, “Gerrymander Wars: Outlook for the 2026 Midterm House Elections,” August 12, 2026 (state will use the new map in November; jungle primary and December 12 runoff structure).
20. Democracy Docket, “Will Louisiana’s last majority-Black district survive Callais? A court will decide,” June 2, 2026, with update (hearing cancelled; question deferred).
21. WAFB, “Louisiana could owe $2.2 million in legal fees after losing redistricting case,” June 26, 2026.
22. WDSU, “Cleo Fields exits Congress race after district shake-up,” July 23, 2026.
23. WBRZ, “10 candidates qualify for Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District,” August 8, 2026.
24. WWNO, “Letlow, Davis advance in Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race,” June 27, 2026; POLITICO, “Trump-backed Letlow wins GOP primary for Sen. Bill Cassidy’s seat,” June 27, 2026.
25. Brennan Center for Justice, “States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies,” April 23, 2026 (Louisiana’s proof-of-citizenship law on the books but not implemented).
26. Center for American Progress, “The SAVE Act May Be Stalled in Congress, But State Versions Are Being Advanced,” June 30, 2026 (Louisiana has not implemented its law).
27. Ballotpedia, “Proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration by state” (as of July 2026, Louisiana had not implemented the requirement).
28. Campaign Legal Center, “Campaign Legal Center Defends Against Anti-Voter Law in Louisiana” (LWV of Louisiana v. Landry; intervention in Louisiana v. EAC).
29. Louisiana Illuminator, “Louisiana sues federal officials for denying proof-of-citizenship change to voter form,” April 16, 2026.
30. League of Women Voters, “Louisiana v. U.S. Election Assistance Commission,” April 17, 2026 (litigation ongoing).
31. Louisiana Radio Network, “Louisiana residents on state’s inactive voter list will be permitted to vote,” April 8, 2026 (455,000 inactive; Secretary Landry statements).
32. WAFB, “Nearly 500K Louisiana voters on inactive list ahead of new closed primary,” February 20, 2026 (grace period of two federal general elections).
33. Louisiana Illuminator, “Voting rights, privacy advocates sue to stop Trump administration’s ‘national data banks’,” October 1, 2025 (Louisiana first state to use SAVE; 390 flagged registrants).
34. Protect Democracy, “Protecting voter privacy and the integrity of U.S. elections,” June 11, 2026 (Louisiana among states that provided unredacted voter rolls to DOJ; Common Cause v. DOJ).
35. UW State Democracy Research Initiative, “Tracker: DOJ Lawsuits Seeking States’ Sensitive Voter Data,” updated September 4, 2026 (Louisiana not sued; national outcomes).
36. Brennan Center, “Federal Court Blocks U.S. Postal Service from Interfering with Mail Ballots,” September 4, 2026.
37. Votebeat, “Update: Supreme Court to decide fate of Trump administration’s proposed mail-ballot rules,” updated September 6, 2026.
38. SCOTUSblog, “Trump administration again appeals mail-in ballot dispute to the Supreme Court,” September 6, 2026.
39. Federal Register, “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections,” final rule 2026-17238, August 26, 2026.
40. Bipartisan Policy Center, “Six Things to Know About the SAVE America Act,” updated July 17, 2026 (Senate status; the April 23, 2026 reconciliation motion).
41. News From The States, “Election experts see few legal options for Trump to meddle with polling places,” September 3, 2026; Rep. Krishnamoorthi press release, September 4, 2026.
42. La. R.S. 18:428 (law enforcement at polling places); La. R.S. 18:461.7 (firearms); La. R.S. 18:1306, 18:1308, 18:1313 (absentee certificate, witness, receipt deadline); La. R.S. 18:1303 (early voting); La. R.S. 18:401.1 (election emergency); La. R.S. 18:566.2 (provisional ballot counting).
43. NCSL, “Polling Places” and “Table 14: How States Verify Voted Absentee/Mail Ballots” (Louisiana witness requirement; law enforcement rules).
44. MultiState, “State Voting & Election Laws Dashboard” (Louisiana does not permit ballot drop boxes; no postmark acceptance).
45. 52 U.S.C. § 21082 (HAVA provisional ballot requirement); 52 U.S.C. § 20507(c)(2)(A) (NVRA 90-day quiet period); 18 U.S.C. § 592 (armed federal troops at polls).

Factual correction requests: If you believe information in this playbook is incorrect, please contact factcheck@patriot.university with the specific claim and any supporting documentation. We review all submissions and correct verified errors promptly.

Last Updated: September 7, 2026