BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – Tuesday, Governor John Bel Edwards announced he plans to block Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s emergency virus election plan.
The Governor said the election plan doesn’t include enough mail-in ballot options for people affected by Covid-19.
The plan scales back some of the voting options the state saw in the summer election. Although it would increase the early voting dates, it takes away from absentee ballot options.
“In fact, there’s not even consideration given to those people who’ve been told to quarantine because they been in close contact with someone who’s been positively diagnosed as having Covid. They’ve been told not to leave their house for 14 days and they’re not eligible to request an absentee ballot” said Edwards.
The Governor said he hopes Ardoin withdraws his plan and if not, the decision will be handled by a judge.
Late Tuesday night, Ardoin’s office released this statement to BR Proud News:
“I will not be altering the plan I submitted. The plan the governor prefers was developed under a stay-at-home-order; our state is currently in phase two. I negotiated the best possible plan that could pass the legislative committees, and if this issue must be resolved in the courts, I hope any ruling would include the critical mechanisms our office needs to administer the election.”
Kyle Ardoin, Secretary of State