BATON ROUGE, La. — Two upcoming election days in Louisiana, including the state's presidential preference primaries, will be delayed for two months due to the coronavirus outbreak there.
Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin announced the change Friday due to the state's public health emergency. Louisiana law allows for the secretary of state to delay or reschedule an election in an emergency situation.
Ardoin said Louisiana presidential preference primary, originally scheduled for April 4, will now be scheduled for June 20. Early voting will be conducted June 6 through June 13, except for Sunday, June 7.
A general election set for May 9 will be moved to July 25. Early voting will be conducted July 11 through July 18, except for Sunday, June 12.
"The two-month delay will allow our office to continue to procure necessary supplies to put our state in the best possible posture to conduct elections," Ardoin said.
Ardoin said one key reason for delaying the election was to protect the health of election day polling commissioners, over half of whom are over the age of 65 years old.
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