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BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: The August 28, Louisiana primary election will be the last closed primary for the state, unless further legislation changes it back. Wednesday, July 28 was the last day for residents in the state to change their party affiliation or to register with a party in time to vote in the primary election. Both the Louisiana Senate and Congressional districts 2 and 3 have contested races and political experts expect heated races. Starting in 2012, the primary election will be open again meaning all candidates will face off during the primary, if one candidates from a party does not get more than half the majority of votes the top two would have a runoff election on October 2, then the winner would head to the general election in November. If a resident is a member of an unaligned party, they could choose to vote in the Democratic or Libertarian election, but not Republican. [1]
Open primary elections were held in the state until 2008 when legislation was enacted to make them closed. But due to widespread confusion the last 2 primary elections, the legislation enacted new legislation to make the primary elections open once again. Though officially this new legislation takes effect in 2011, the next primary election will be in 2012 so that would be the first time it is practiced.[2]
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