Latest Weather Blog
Voter registration deadline passes, workers preparing for November election
Related Story
BATON ROUGE — Last-minute voters lined up to register and drop off forms at the East Baton Rouge Office of the Registrar of Voters as election workers prepared for early voting.
Monday marked the deadline for registering to vote in November's general election. Four floors up, election workers prepared for early voting, which is set to begin Oct. 20.
Teams from the local elections office joined officials from Louisiana's Secretary of State office to observe, conduct and seal the early voting machines. State law requires the process and workers spent hours making sure the machines had zero votes on them and worked accurately and efficiently.
"We're using a few more machines this go around since it's a large election and because it's a larger ballot it takes a little extra time to do the testing," Registrar of Voters Steve Raborn said.
Raborn said he has noticed an increase in in-person registration as well as requests for absentee ballots this election cycle compared with the last midterm elections.
"Typically we see heavier interest in that in presidential years, but we're getting a lot of requests so far this year, so it's reminding us in many ways of a presidential election," he said.
Voting officials also say they expect a larger than usual turnout for local and federal races compared with previous midterm elections. Early voting runs from Oct. 20 through Oct. 27.
The general election is set for Nov. 3. The special general election to pick the state's six representatives to serve in the U.S. House is set for Dec. 12.
News
