Today Is The Last Day For Early Voting

Today is the last day of early voting and there have already been a record number of voters turning out to the polls. Secretary of State Tom Schedler says as of Saturday, 366,000 votes have been cast and those numbers are growing.

“Weather has been great, people have been very enthusiastic. Obviously, the lines are a little bit longer than we’d love but it’s a one in four year event and it’s democracy at action.”

Early voting for the 2016 Presidential Election has broken records from the previous elections in 2008 and 2012. Roughly about 73-thousand people voted each day during the early voting period. Schedler believes that many people are getting out to vote ahead of time because of the controversial candidates in the race but also…

“It’s a Tuesday election. You know early voting has always been a convenience vote, so people, knowing it’s a work day, maybe want to get this out of the way.”

There are more than 220 races across the state with 728 candidates. Schedler says the early voters are seen as chronic voters who are just looking for a more convenient time to get to the polls. He expects the turn out on Election Day should follow the trend, because more people than ever have registered to vote.

“For the first time, in this registration cycle, Louisiana has passed up the 3 million voters registered.”