Early voting rose for Saturday's election

Early voting in St. Landry Parish for Saturday’s election increased 6 percent over the early voting for the Oct. 24 primary election.
There were 3,824 votes at the end of early voting Saturday compared to 3,603 votes in the October election even though voters had one less day to vote because of the Veterans Day holiday.
The early voting numbers are from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office’s online site.
The increase in St. Landry Parish comes even though this Saturday’s ballot is much shorter than the October ballot.
Cheryl Milburn, St. Landry Parish registrator of voters, said the runoff in the District 40 state representative race helped push the early voting.
Milburn thinks Saturday’s voter turnout in St. Landry Parish could reach 48 to 50 percent. Turnout for the primary election in the governor’s race was 37.8 percent.
There are 59,514 voters registered for this Saturday’s vote.
The District 40 race pits Democrats Donovan Hudson and Dustin Miller in the runoff from a field of eight candidates. The district includes most of St. Landry Parish, but Eunice area voters do not vote in the district.
Statewide, 16 percent more voters participated in early voting than in the October primary election. There 257,021 early votes cast in the state out of 2.89 million voters.
At the top of the ballot Saturday’s is the runoff between Democrat Rep. John Bel Edwards and Republican Sen. David Vitter.
Secretary of State Tom Schedler is projecting 40 to 42 percent turnout for Saturday’s vote. State turnout in October’s primary was 38.5 percent.
The breakdown of St. Landry Parish voters casting early ballots for the Saturday election includes: 1,682, white; 2,082, black; 70, other; 1,621, male; 2,213, female; 2,585, Democrat; 830, Republican; 419, other.
In October’s early voting, the breakdown of voters included: 1,595, white; 1,966, black; 42, other; 1,469, male; 2,133, female; 2,495, Democrat; 725, Republican; 383, other.
In Acadia Parish, the turnout for early voting was down compared to the turnout for the October primary.
Registrar of Voters Billie Meyer reported that, as of mid-morning Monday, 2,944 votes had been cast in advance of the Nov. 21 run-off. That’s about 7.5 percent of the number of eligible voters in the parish.
During the six days of early voting, 2,472 votes were cast in person at the registrar’s office.
In October, 3,117 ballots had been cast by the Monday morning following the closing of early voting, and 2,736 of those were in person.
Turnout for early voting rose sharply in Evangeline Parish.
According to Evangeline Parish Registrar of Voters Lucas Buller, 1,950 votes were cast in person during the early voting period for this Saturday’s run-off election. That is an increase of 6 percent compared to the 1,832 votes cast during the Oct. 24 general election.
Elections on the St. Landry Parish ballot are:
Governor
John Bel Edwards
Democrat
David Vitter
Republican
Lieutenant Governor
Melvin L. “Kip” Holden
Democrat
“Billy” Nungesser
Republican
Attorney General
James D. “Buddy” Caldwell
Republican
“Jeff” Landry
Republican
State Representative 40th Representative District
Donovan K. Hudson
Democrat
Dustin Miller
Democrat
Council Member District 2
Angela Brooks-Roberson
Democrat
Nancy A. Carriere
Democrat