The time for early voting in Louisiana has ended and as of Tuesday at midnight, the numbers have surpassed previous early voting. Meg Casper, Press Secretary for Secretary of State Tom Schedler, says more than 437,000 of Louisiana's three million voters voted early across the state. And that’s not including yesterday’s turnout.
“That’s up from both 2008 and 2012 in terms of early voting in Louisiana,” says Casper.
In 2008, just over 292,000 people participated in early voting. And in 2012, that number reached 356,000.
But who are these early voters?
From Tuesday, October 25th - the first day of early voting - to Monday, October 31st, “about 57% of the early voters were women. 42% were men.”
That looks very similar to the breakdown of early voting in the past two presidential elections.
“The largest party that has turned out so far is the Democratic party at 45%, followed closely by Republicans at 39% and other party at 16%."
Louisiana usually holds statewide elections - like the one last year for Governor - on Saturdays. But federal elections fall on a Tuesday. Casper says that doesn’t tend to change the trends we see in early voters.
“They’re about the same. Most of the time a Tuesday election is a federal election, so we’re either electing President, which is always our highest turnout election, or it’s a congressional election, which again is a high turnout election," she says, "so I think it more depends on what’s on the ballot, not the day of the week."
And this year’s ballot is lengthy. In addition to President, each congressional district is holding an election, there are twenty-four candidates for U.S. Senator, and six constitutional amendments.
Only six days remain between now and Tuesday, when the rest of the votes will be cast.