Saturday October 24th was an abysmal day. If you recall the weather was horrible and we the people of Louisiana let ourselves down tremendously. That day was election day and only two in every five citizens bothered to cast a ballot. That was then, this is now.

Obviously voters were very ashamed of their lack of participation in the October election or they are very inspired by the choice of candidates they have to choose from in the runoff. Personally, I hope it's a little bit of both.

Secretary of State Tom Schedler told the Louisiana Radio Network that so far in the early voting portion of the runoff election the numbers are up.

If we can average 40,000 a day, even with the day off, we would exceed the primary election by 20,000 votes. That would be a substantial increase of about 4% to 5%.

Schedler does believe the higher voter turnout is because of the smaller ballot that voters have to peruse.  The candidates are more familiar and their messages are more defined. Let's hope that's the case because the turnout for the October 24th election was less than 40% statewide.

By Friday we should see if this trend continues, I think we’ll be able to give a little bit better assessment and be able to delve down into the details a little bit more because we will have substantial number of votes cast.

After a day off Wednesday for Veteran's Day early voting will resume on Thursday at each parishes registrar of voters office. Early voting will continue until Saturday the 14th. The runoff voting will conclude on election day November 21.

 

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