Some ballots in the House District 93 election have been deemed incorrect, according to the Secretary of State, ahead of an election on March 25.
House District 93 covers the French Quarter, the Central Business District, the Garden District and parts of the Seventh Ward.
Residents will be voting for three races, the civil district court judge, the criminal district court judge and the run off election between Sibil "Fox" Richardson and Alonzo Knox for the State House Representative.
Some ballots sent out via mail though, are incorrect. Some mail in ballots are missing the house representative race on it.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, only a “small number” of voters may have received an incorrect ballot. A representative for the office says the number is in the single digits and happened because of a packaging issue.
Voting Rights Attorney and Executive Director of Louisiana Justice Institute, Tracie Washington, says the incorrect ballots are a voting rights issue.
“When you have not sent someone the proper ballot you’ve not allowed them to exercise their right to vote in an election you’ve torn that from them,” Washington said.
Although the secretary of state’s office says only a small amount of incorrect ballots were delivered, Washington says some of these elections come down to only a small amount of votes. Washington says many of these elections have a low voter turnout so every vote matters.
Washington is calling on the registrar’s office and the secretary of state to take responsibility and fix the issue rather than waiting for the residents to report the issue.
“If as the secretary of state says it’s just a handful, we don’t know but if it’s just a handful, guess what pick up the phone and call or simply send a new ballot that’s all we’re asking and that’s the legal thing to do,” Washington says.
Washington adds the registrar and secretary getting ahead of the issue is a better option than the alternative, of possibly having to re do the election over.
“If not guess what’s going to happen, we’re going to have to have a do over and a very expensive do over because individuals were disenfranchised, they were denied their opportunity to vote and there will be litigation,” Washington said.
We do know at least one person’s ballot has been corrected – the resident says a representative of the Registrar’s office hand delivered a new ballot to his house after he reported it. If you suspect your ballot is incorrect you can compare it to a sample ballot on Geauxvote.com or call the Orleans Parish registrar’s office.