Early voting for the Saturday, October 14th election will take place for seven days starting this Saturday, September 30th.
Beginning Saturday and continuing for exactly one week, excluding Sun- day, until Saturday, October 7, voters may vote early without any excuse from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. each day.
Early voting takes place at the LaSalle Parish Registrar of Voters Office across from the LaSalle Parish Courthouse in Jena at 1009 Courthouse Street Suite B. In Louisiana, a photo identification or signature on a voter affidavit is required to vote during Early Voting.
The October 14th ballot is large featuring many state, district and local elections along with one parish-wide sales tax proposition and four constitutional amendments.
Among the statewide elections are Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General and Treasurer.
LaSalle Parish voters will join other surrounding parishes to decide the District 5 BESE member and District 20 State Representative.
In LaSalle only, voters will cast ballots for the position of LaSalle Parish Sheriff.
There are also several positions on the LaSalle Parish Police Jury that voters in individual districts will decide. Those include Districts 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
The parish will also vote on the LaSalle Parish School System’s one-cent sales tax proposition, which divides the one-cent in the following distribution percentages: 50% construction/maintenance; 25% school safety/security; and 25% supplemental pay.
A detailed report of the four constitutional amendments may be found in a separate article in this issue.
Also on the ballot, for the Town of Urania, two names will be listed for the open position of Alderman. However, LaSalle Parish Registrar of Voters Angie Sandifer noted that Bobby Brown has since withdrawn which means Teresa Sanders Corley is automatically elected. Although voters in Urania will still see two names on their ballots for Alderman (since he withdrew after the ballots were constructed) and technically may still cast a vote in that race, any votes for Brown will not be counted.
“Technically, there is no race for Alderman for the Town of Urania due to his withdrawal,” Sandifer said.
As of late last week, LaSalle Parish has 8,728 registered voters with 476 inactive voters listed. Inactive voters may still vote but will have to fill out an address confirmation when they go to the polls. Sandifer noted that if anyone is listed as “inactive” it would be best come in her office prior to voting to help speed up the process.
According to the U.S. Census, the parish has an estimated population of 14,729 as of July 1, 2022, which means that 59% of the parish is registered to vote.
“Voting is the fundamental right of all legal United States citizens and is a bedrock of our government and society,” Sandifer said. “We are all thankful for our freedoms here in the United States and the freedom to vote and elect our leaders is paramount to the success of our nation. I ask that all LaSalle Parish residents register to vote and then exercise that right on election day.”
The Registrar also noted that due to the October 14th ballot being considerably lengthy, voters should know the ballot and how they are going to vote prior to entering into the ballot booth.
“I would like to urge voters to study their ballot before voting since they are only allowed three minutes in the voting booth,” she said. “The ballot is pretty long and voter turnout is expected to be heavy.”
