Orleans Parish Traffic Court, Louisiana

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The Orleans Parish Traffic Court resides in Louisiana. Click on the links below to learn more about the court's...

Jurisdiction

The Orleans Parish Traffic Court administers hearings regarding traffic violations.[1]

Judges


Elections

Louisiana is one of 43 states that hold elections for judicial positions. To learn more about judicial selection in Louisiana, click here.

Selection method

See also: Judicial selection in the states

Judges of the traffic courts are elected to eight-year terms, throughout which they work part-time schedules and are allowed to maintain a private practice.[2]

Judicial elections in Louisiana

See also: Louisiana judicial elections

Louisiana is one of 11 states that uses partisan elections to select judges and does not use retention elections for subsequent terms. To read more about how states use judicial elections to select judges across the country, click here.

Primary election

Judges compete in a primary election against candidates of all parties. If no candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote (a "majority vote"), the top two candidates run against each other in the general election. If a candidate does receive a majority vote in the primary, he or she is declared elected as an unopposed candidate and will not be listed on the general election ballot.[3]

In even-numbered years, Louisiana's primary elections are held in November during the general elections of other states.

For two or more open seats

In the event that candidates are competing for more than one open seat on a court, the majority vote is decided by "dividing the total votes cast for all of the candidates by the number of offices to be filled [and] dividing the result so obtained by two," according to the Secretary of State website. The SOS goes on to give the following example:

1,040 total votes cast ÷ 3 offices to be filled = 346.6
346.6 ÷ 2 = 173.3

In the above example, 174 votes are necessary to win for each of the 3 offices.[3]

General election

A general election is won by obtaining the highest number of votes. In the case of races with two or more open seats, the two or more candidates with the highest votes are declared the winners. If there is a tie, an additional election will be scheduled for the third Saturday after the announcement of the election results.[3]

See also

External links

Footnotes