Orleans Parish School Board special elections (2015)

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2015 Orleans Parish School Board Special Election
Primary election date:
October 24, 2015
General Election date:
November 21, 2015
Table of Contents
About the district Method of election Elections Key deadlines Additional elections External links
See also
Louisiana Orleans Parish School Board Orleans Parish, Louisiana ballot measures Local ballot measures, Louisiana

One seat on the Orleans Parish School Board was up for special election in 2015. The primary election for the District 1 seat was scheduled for October 24, 2015. A general election was held on November 21, 2015, as no candidate garnered a majority vote in the primary election.

Louisiana elections use the Louisiana majority-vote system. All candidates compete in the same primary, and a candidate can win the election outright by receiving more than 50% of the vote. If no candidate does, the top two vote recipients from the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their partisan affiliation.

For information about which offices are nominated via primary election, see this article.

Three Democratic candidates filed for the open seat: Keith Barney, Shawon Bernard and John Brown Sr. As of the unofficial primary election night results, Brown was the clear top vote recipient, securing 37.7 percent of the vote. Bernard and Barney came in second and third, respectively, but with a margin of just 29 votes separating them. A recount could have been held due to the narrow margin separating Bernard and Barney, but no request for one was filed by the deadline of October 28, 2015.

Since Brown did not secure a majority of the primary votes cast, a runoff election between him and Bernard was necessary to determine the overall winner of the election. Brown won the remainder of the unexpired term in the runoff election.

About the district

See also: Orleans Parish School Board, Louisiana

Orleans Parish School Board is located in Orleans Parish, La.

Orleans Parish School Board is located in the parish of the same name. Orleans Parish is coterminous with the city of New Orleans. Orleans Parish was home to 384,320 residents in 2014, according to the United States Census Bureau. Orleans Parish School Board was the 17th-largest school district in Louisiana in the 2012–2013 school year, serving 13,707 students.

Demographics

Orleans Parish outperformed the rest of Louisiana in terms of higher education achievement in 2013. The United States Census Bureau found that 33.7 percent of parish residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 21.8 percent of state residents. The median household income in the parish was $37,146, compared to $44,874 for the state of Louisiana. The poverty rate in the parish was 27.3 percent, compared to 19.1 percent for the entire state.

Racial Demographics, 2013
Race	Orleans Parish (%)	Louisiana (%)
White	35.0	63.5
Black or African American	60.1	32.4
American Indian and Alaska Native	0.4	0.8
Asian	3.0	1.7
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	0.1	0.1
Two or More Races	1.5	1.5
Hispanic or Latino	5.5	4.7

Presidential Voting Pattern, Orleans Parish
Year	Republican Vote	Democratic Vote
2012	28,003	126,722
2008	28,130	117,102
2004	42,847	152,610
2000	39,404	137,630

Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

Voter and candidate information

The Orleans Parish School Board consists of seven partisan members who are regularly elected simultaneously in by district every four years. Louisiana school board elections require a majority of 50 percent plus one for a candidate to win. If a candidate garners this majority in what is called the primary election, no general election is held. If no candidate receives the majority of votes, a general election is held and functions as a runoff election. Any member who, at the end of his or her term, has served more than two and one-half terms in the last three consecutive terms cannot be re-elected in the following term; however, they can be re-elected following a one term break.

All vacancies on the board are filled by appointment by the Orleans Parish School Board for the remainder of the unexpired term of the vacated seat. If the unexpired term is longer than one year, a special election must be called. The appointed member serves until a successor is elected and has taken the prescribed oath of office. The power to fill vacancies on the board derives from Article VI, Section 13 of the Louisiana Constitution.

Board member Ira Thomas, last elected on November 6, 2012, had more than one year remaining on his term at the time of his resignation. The board appointed John A. Brown Sr. (D) to the seat until the special election could be held. The primary election for the District 1 seat was scheduled for October 24, 2015. A general election was held on November 21, 2015.

A recount could have been held due to the narrow margin separating Bernard and Barney, but no request for one was filed by the deadline of October 28, 2015. According to state law, only absentee and early voting ballots could have been recounted and only if the number of those votes would have been sufficient to change the outcome of the election. The narrow margin separating Barney and Bernard in the primary election and the number of absentee and early ballots qualified the race for a recount. In order for one to be held, one of the candidate or a voter in the election would have had to request the recount in writing with the parish clerk of court by October 28, 2015.

Elections

2015

Candidates

District 1

John Brown Sr.		Keith Barney		Shawon Bernard
	Incumbent Appointed to the board on March 27, 2015 Retired educator and administrator Bachelor's degree, Winston-Salem State University M.Ed., University of New Orleans U.S. Army, 1971–1973		Teacher, Firstline Schools Bachelor's degree, Southern University at New Orleans		Education advocate B.S. and M.Ed., University of New Orleans M.S., Southern University at New Orleans J.D. from the Southern University Law Center

Election results

Orleans Parish School Board, District 1 Special Runoff Election, 1-year unexpired term, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	John A. Brown Sr. Incumbent	56.9%	7,321
	Democratic	Shawon Bernard	43.1%	5,536
Total Votes				12,857
Source: Louisiana Secretary of State, "Unofficial Results," accessed November 21, 2015 These election results are not official and will be updated when certified results are available. You can submit certified results by contacting us.

Orleans Parish School Board, District 1 Special Election, 1-year unexpired term, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	John A. Brown Sr. Incumbent	37.7%	3,792
	Democratic	Shawon Bernard	31.3%	3,151
	Democratic	Keith Barney	31%	3,122
Total Votes				10,065
Source: Louisiana Secretary of State, "Official Results," accessed November 21, 2015

Key deadlines

The following dates were key deadlines for the Tangipahoa Parish Schools election in 2015:

Deadline	Event
September 8-10, 2015	Candidate qualifying period
September 23, 2015	Voter registration deadline for primary election
October 10-17, 2015	Early voting period for primary election
October 21, 2015	Voter registration deadline for general election
October 24, 2015	Primary election Day
November 7-14, 2015	Early voting period for general election
November 21, 2015	General Election Day, if necessary

Additional elections on the ballot

See also: Louisiana elections, 2015

This special school board election shares the ballot with regular gubernatorial, state senate, state house of representative and judicial elections.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Orleans Parish School Board'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

Orleans Parish School Board special elections (2015) - Google News

See also

Orleans Parish School Board	Louisiana	School Boards
List of school districts in Louisiana	Louisiana school board elections, 2015 Public education in Louisiana Local ballot measures, Louisiana	School board elections, 2015 School board elections, 2014 School board election data analysis, 2015 School board election data analysis, 2014

External links

Suggest a link

• Orleans Parish School Board
• Orleans Parish, Louisiana