Disability rights groups filed a Voting Rights Act lawsuit against the state of Louisiana on Wednesday to block a series of new bills that target absentee voting.
The four laws in question include one that makes it illegal to print out an application from a state website and give it to someone who has not requested it, and also makes it illegal to help multiple people who are not immediate family members fill out, mail or witness absentee ballots.
Disability Rights Louisiana filed the lawsuit in federal court for the Middle District of Louisiana, asking a judge to issue a statewide injunction to stop Secretary of State Nancy Landry from implementing and enforcing new laws passed by the Louisiana Legislature this year aimed at addressing the growing popularity of absentee voting.
“While people were rightfully outraged by laws requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms, laws that suppress the vote for people with disabilities have passed with far less attention,” Andrew Beiser, an attorney with the Louisiana Disability Rights Association, said in a statement. “The Voting Rights Act gives people with disabilities the right to have someone they trust help them vote. These new laws make that nearly impossible for people living in nursing homes and group homes. These laws are undemocratic and must be stopped.”
The laws at issue are:
Bill 380 (formerly House Bill 476), introduced by Republican Rep. Josh Carlson of Lafayette, is set to take effect on August 1, and would prohibit the mailing of multiple absentee ballots for voters who are not immediate family members. Before this law was enacted, it was already illegal for non-relatives to hand-deliver multiple absentee ballots per election to be counted by voter registrars. Carlson’s bill expands that law to prohibit mailings. Bill 317 (formerly Senate Bill 218), introduced by Republican Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter of Port Allen, is also set to take effect on August 1, and would prohibit the giving of an absentee ballot application to multiple people who are not immediate family members. It is not the absentee ballots themselves that are prohibited, but the forms used to request an absentee ballot. It would also make it illegal to give these forms, which can be printed from the Secretary of State’s website, to people who have not officially requested one. Finally, the bill contains a sweeping provision that makes it illegal to “facilitate the distribution or collection of absentee vote-by-mail applications or absentee vote-by-mail ballots in violation of this section.” Act 302 by Kleinpeter and Act 712 by Republican Rep. Polly Thomas of Metairie. Although similar in effect, both bills make it a crime to witness the absentee ballot of more than one person who is not an immediate family member.
“The laws at issue face legal violations of the Voting Rights Act and threaten to criminalize caregivers, nurses, doctors and others who assist people with disabilities and older adults,” the Louisiana disability rights group’s lawsuit read.
Absentee ballot numbers vary
Absentee voting by mail, which typically opens about two weeks before an election, has steadily grown in popularity over the past two decades and became a key way for voters to get to the polls in the 2020 presidential election, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
The election was also marked by controversy after former President Donald Trump and his allies began spreading lies about his loss to President Joe Biden, much of it about absentee voting, which is more commonly used by Democrats than Republicans.
This trend did not hold true in Louisiana’s 2023 gubernatorial election. Democrats dominated early voting in Louisiana in 2020, but Republicans far outnumbered Democrats in early voting last October, winning 44% of the vote to 41% for Democrats.
Secretary of State wants to limit absentee voting despite no voter fraud
It may be too early to tell whether these results signal a longer-term change or are simply an anomaly from an unusually quiet election that resulted in the lowest turnout primary for Louisiana governor in recent history.
For thousands of voters, absentee voting is their only opportunity to cast a ballot. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1 in 3 adults in Louisiana, or more than 1.1 million people, have a disability. People with disabilities disproportionately rely on absentee voting due to mobility challenges, limited access to transportation, risks associated with voting in person, barriers to accessing polling places, or being confined. Some of these voters with disabilities rely on others to help them apply for, fill out and mail their absentee ballot.
According to the Secretary of State’s Office, about 15,000 voters with disabilities cast absentee ballots with the help of others in the 2020 presidential election, and more than 6,000 did so in last October’s election. This figure does not include voters with disabilities who cast absentee ballots without help, a relatively small percentage of the electorate.
In total, more than 95,000 voters cast absentee ballots in last year’s gubernatorial election, accounting for 26% of early votes, a 9 percentage point increase over the share of absentee ballots cast in early voting in 2020.
Election officials cite local fraud
All four new laws are part of what Landry calls an “election integrity legislative package,” but he and his predecessor, Kyle Ardoin, have repeatedly asserted that Louisiana has not seen widespread cases of voter fraud. But Landry has cited several minor incidents of election crimes to back up his claims.
In an earlier statement to The Illuminator, Landry’s office cited three cases of misdemeanor election crimes in Louisiana that affected a small number of vote counts, none of which showed evidence of widespread fraud among absentee voters.
The first involved a buy-back scheme orchestrated by a handful of local officials in Tanjipahoa Parish between 2016 and 2020. The other involved a 2018 municipal election in Acadia Parish when a Crowley woman named Delores Dee Handy was helping two elderly voters with their absentee ballots and allegedly did not complete them as instructed. She was convicted and given probation. The third incident occurred in 2020 when an Amite City Council member allegedly provided a false address on two voter registration forms.
The Louisiana Disability Rights Association argues that Governor Landry’s new law will do little to prevent fraud and will only limit the voting rights of many people with disabilities. Under the state’s new law, disabled people who live in nursing homes or group homes cannot get help mailing their absentee ballots or printing absentee ballot applications if staff at the facility are already helping or planning to help other residents or patients with the same tasks.
The lawsuit argues that Louisiana’s new law is in direct conflict with the federal Voting Rights Act, which Congress amended in 1984 to allow people who need assistance voting because of a disability to receive assistance from “a person selected by the voter.”