LAFAYETTE — Louisiana held its first election under the closed primary system on May 16 after holding opened primaries for years, leaving some voters uncertain about how the changes affect their participation.
David Hughes, an associate professor of political scientist at UL, said, "Any time a state changes how registration works for voting, it can confuse voters, at least when the policy is new."
House Bill 17 changed the state's primary system from opened to closed.
"In an open primary election, folks can show up at the polls and can simply declare, 'I want to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary,' for example, but in a closed primary you have to be a registered member of the party in order to participate." Hughes said.
The change applied to the U.S. Senate and the Louisiana Supreme Court races, but does not apply to the U.S. Representative race for November and December.
He said, "The idea is that some parties would prefer not having members of the opposition party participating in their primary elections."
Much of the confusion, Hughes said, centered on voters registered as no-party who misunderstood what selecting "no party" on their ballot would mean.
"Some people were kind of confused because they said, 'Well, I registered no-party, so I should choose no party, but if you do that, you only vote on the constitutional amendments and you couldn't participate in either party's primary," he said.
Going forward, Hughes said voters registered as no party need to be prepared to choose a party ballot when they arrive at the polls.
He said, "If you have already registered for a party, and that's the party you always want to vote with, then not much is going to change from your perspective, but if you were the kind of voter who liked to pick and choose which party's primary they voted in, you're going to have to go ahead and change your registration to no party so that you can declare it at the polls."
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