Nearly 800,000 Louisiana residents cast their votes Saturday,with 618,994 of them voting for the amendment to ban same-sexmarriages and civil unions.
With 78 percent of the votes for the amendment and only 22percent against it, some wonder if the election was disrupted byoutside sources. With the evacuation of certain parishes due to thethreat from Hurricane Ivan, and a technical glitch in OrleansParish polling systems, some gay marriage activists are skepticalof the wide gap between the voting percentages.
Scott Madere, press secretary for the Louisiana Secretary ofState, said due to such a large margin of voters for the amendment,the number of registered voters who may have been opposed but didnot vote would not have totaled the difference.
“It is not plausible to blame the hurricane evacuation forthe passing of the amendment,” Madere said. “There weremany other parishes surrounding New Orleans that were evacuated andthe voting was not disturbed.”
Madere said the percentage of votes in Orleans Parish was theclosest race. In that parish, 55 percent of voters voted for theamendment and 45 percent voted against it.
Orleans Parish also experienced technical problems deliveringthe voting polls to voting locations.
“The basic problem was that voting machines were notdelivered to 52 polling places, which affected 90 precincts inOrleans Parish,” Madere said.
Madere said the problem was caused by two reasons. Severalpolling places were not open on Friday afternoon for delivery ofthe voting machines. Also, many drivers of CoVan World-Wide Movingdid not report to work early Saturday morning, resulting in thelack of delivery of polling machines.
Madere said the State Attorney General and the Orleans ParishClerk of Criminal Court are investigating the problems concerningCoVan World-Wide Moving.
Madere also said an amendment similar to Louisiana’s hasbeen passed in nine other states that have voted on it.
Rebecca Hebert, a photography junior and co-chair of SpectrumAlliance, said she found the ambiguity of the amendment’swording may have caused uneducated voters to be confused.
However, Madere said the media may be to blame for theconfusion.
“The title of the amendment said marriage in Louisiana isbetween one man and one woman,” Madere said. “If youwere for that then you voted yes. Honestly, the problem came withthe media and the different ways people explained it by word ofmouth.”
Hebert said a local New Orleans political action caucus, Forumfor Equality, is planning to challenge the amendment on severalgrounds. Hebert said the amendment dealt with multiple issuesincluding same-sex marriage and civil unions and the election wasnot statewide because the amendment was the only issue in someparishes.
“There is nothing Spectrum can do at the moment,”Hebert said. “But if we are given an opportunity, we willfight to challenge.”