BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two-thirds of Louisiana’s registered voters showed up to the polls on Election Day, a smaller percentage than predicted but the largest number of voters to cast ballots in Louisiana history.Secretary of State Jay Dardenne’s office said Wednesday that 66.5 percent of voters cast ballots in the presidential race — or 1.96 million of 2.95 million registered voters.That was below Dardenne’s predictions of 70 percent or higher and well under the record voter percentage turnout of 78.9 percent in the 1991 gubernatorial runoff between now-imprisoned former Gov. Edwin Edwards and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.But Dardenne spokesman Jacques Berry said the total number of voters topped any previous elections.The highest percentage of voters cast ballots in St. James Parish. There, 80 percent of registered voters went to the polls. The lowest turnout was 47 percent in St. Bernard Parish, whose population was scattered three years ago by Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, 52 percent of Orleans Parish voters cast ballots.——Contact The Daily Reveille news staff at [email protected]
La. voter turnout comes in below projections – 12:55 p.m.
November 6, 2008