Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Defense Secretary Hegseth Testifies Before Senate Appropriations Committee

Can We Fire Hegseth Yet?

People walking down the steps of the U.S. capitol.

DNC's Proposed RCV Ban Sparks Debate Over 2028 Presidential Primaries

What Will It Take to Rebuild American Democracy?

What Will It Take to Rebuild American Democracy?

Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No.

Missouri Drew a Gerrymander. Now Its Secretary of State Says Voters Can’t Say No.

Person holding gavel and reading from a book.

Retired Chief Justices Warn of Growing Threats to the Rule of Law

Latest lawsuit seeks to make Louisiana relax its voting rules for fall

Louisiana Gov. Jon Bel Edwards and President Donald Trump

Gov. Jon Bel Edwards, at the White House in April, says he's open to easing the regulations again for voting absntee.

Pool/Getty Images
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumAug 04, 2020
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
See More Writings by author

The courthouse crusade to make it easier to vote in the presidential election has been revived in reliably red Louisiana.

Voting rights groups sued Monday to compel the state to allow sickness or fear of getting sick as a reason for using an absentee ballot and to extend its timetable for early in-person voting. They argue both easements are constitutionally required during the coronavirus pandemic, which by some measures has struck Louisiana as hard as any other state.

The odds of quick and clear success appear long, however. Previous state and federal lawsuits, seeking to make the rules even more permissive than the state agreed to for last month's presidential primary and municipal elections, went nowhere.

Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin agreed to an emergency decree for the primary that added six days of early voting and said fear of Covid-19 or a positive test were sufficient reasons to vote through the mail.

The new suit was filed at the federal courthouse in Baton Rouge by the same groups that sued in the spring — the NAACP and the progressive Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. They suggested those arrangements would be only minimally sufficient for the general election.

But the state has said nothing about replicating that plan, or coming up with a different one, and the Legislature has signaled it is done for the year.

The governor's office responded to the suit by saying he'd be open to ordering a repeat of the July rules if the top elections official asks for that.

For now, Louisiana is among just seven states standing by their usual curbs on voting from home. Mail ballots are allowed only for those 65 and older, hospitalized or far from home on election day.

As a result, just 3 percent of the vote was cast absentee in the 2018 midterm.

While the democratic rights of the state's 2.9 million voters are in the balance, the outcome of Louisiana's marquee elections this fall are not. Republicans have carried the state with ease five straight times, including President Trump's 20-point win four years ago, and the GOP is essentially a lock to hold a Senate seat and five of six House districts. It's unlikely the state's unique December runoff system will need to be used, except for some legislative contests.


Latest news

A military ship out in the sea.
Ethics & Leadership

Reasons to Care about the Sailors Aboard the USS Lincoln

How Lawyers Protect America’s Democracy and Rule of Law
Rule of Law

How Lawyers Protect America’s Democracy and Rule of Law

Two children playing baseball during the Little League World Series Consolation Game at Howard J. Lamade Stadium on August 25, 2024 in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Bridging & Common Ground

For Two Weeks in August, Sports Still Belong to the Kids

Read More

An illustration of the U.S. flag on the shape of the U.S. with blue and red figures of people across it.

Every state has its own constitution.

aprott iStock / Getty Images Plus

How State Constitutions Became the Battleground for American Rights and Liberties – on Both the Left and Right

Beyond picking governors, state legislators, local officials and representatives to serve in Congress, voters in almost every state this year will have the opportunity to amend the language of their state constitution. In one state, they could potentially rewrite the constitution altogether.

Though the U.S. Constitution is rarely amended, voters frequently amend their state constitutions. In every election cycle, voters are asked to ratify constitutional amendments.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protestors holding signs at a rally, one reads, "Trump is not above the law."

Protesters gather at a Nobody Is Above the Law rally protesting President Trump's interference in the Mueller investigation on November 08, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Larry French/Getty Images

The Double Standard Presidency: When We Watch Leaders Act Above the Law

Americans are told that no one is above the law. Yet every day, they watch a president behave in ways that would get any ordinary citizen fired, disciplined, confronted, or held accountable — and they watch some Americans excuse it. What makes this moment even more striking is that critics across the political spectrum, including conservatives, now warn that the presidency is operating on a dangerous double standard. This is not a partisan concern. It is a constitutional one. And it is tearing at the fabric of our democracy.

For generations, the Constitution has provided guardrails — separation of powers, checks and balances, oversight mechanisms, and limits on executive authority — designed to prevent any leader from functioning above the law. The framers feared concentrated power more than anything else. They believed that the presidency must be constrained not only by written law but by norms of restraint, dignity, and respect for institutions. Those norms held for centuries because presidents understood that the office was larger than any individual, and Congress understood that oversight was not optional.

Keep ReadingShow less
Study Reveals Sharp Generational Divide in How Latino Identity Influences Daily Life

Study Reveals Sharp Generational Divide in How Latino Identity Influences Daily Life

Latino immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos differ sharply in how much their identity shapes their daily lives, according to recent findings from the Pew Research Center’s 2025 National Survey of Latinos. The survey shows that Latino immigrants are far more likely than U.S.-born Latinos to say their identity is central to who they are, and that it influences their experiences in the United States. Pew researchers Gabriel Piña, Mark Hugo Lopez, Sahana Mukherjee, Dalia Fahmy, and Alexandra Cahn report that the divide reflects differences in cultural connection, lived experience, and generational distance from immigrant roots.

Pew’s analysis finds that Latino immigrants are significantly more likely to say their origins are central to their identity, while U.S.-born Latinos — especially those in the third generation or higher — are less likely to feel that connection. The report notes that “U.S. Hispanics are divided on whether their identity helps or hurts them in America,” with some respondents describing their Latino identity as a source of pride and connection, and others saying it is tied to discrimination or barriers.

Keep ReadingShow less
A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model

Clerk Matthew Sandbar, 34, demonstrates part of the ballot-sorting process to members of the media attending a walkthrough of the Philadelphia Ballot Processing Center used to process the ballots of the 2022 US midterm elections, in Philadelphia on October 27, 2022.

Photo by Ryan Collerd / AFP via Getty Images

A Democracy Cannot Run on an AI Model

Tallying the results of Washington, DC’s first ranked-choice election in June took about 10 days—longer than many voters are used to. In an age when artificial intelligence can generate an answer in seconds, waiting days for election results can feel old-fashioned, inefficient, even suspicious. And it is about to matter far more widely. This November, 17 states, cities, and counties will use ranked-choice voting, including Maine and Alaska statewide, in races that could help decide control of Congress. More voters than ever will watch results take days to resolve, and more will be asked to trust a count they cannot see.

But that slowness may be one of its most democratic features.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026