Proposed bills add limits to who can help fill out, turn in mail-in ballots

Shannon Heckt
·3 min read

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — A number of bills have been proposed that will put restrictions on voting by mail and those who may help someone fill out their mail-in ballots.

The Louisiana Secretary of State announced a slate of bills she is supporting in the legislative session. The first few bills in the package had their hearings this week.

SB155 limits how many people an individual can assist with filling out their ballots. Already in law a person can only be a witness to one person’s mail-in ballot if they need help.

Lawmakers in the hearing had concerns about citizens who are trying to help people in their neighborhood or at nursing homes get their ballots filled out. Secretary Nancy Landry said the goal is to protect the vulnerable population who uses mail-in ballots from being badgered into voting a certain way.

“We had video evidence of things like this after the last election we had and, uh, we want to be able to follow up on that and, uh, investigate,” said Landry.

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HB581 adds a fine to the law of witnessing more than one mail-in ballot. If caught, someone could face a $1,000 fine or a year in prison. On the second offense, the fine is $2,500 or up to five years in prison.

SB218 is in a similar vein where someone could not give out more than one absentee ballot application unsolicited. Some people help elderly and disabled people get access to the mail-in ballots by making them aware of the applications and delivering them for the individual. This bill would limit that to only being able to do it for one person unless they are a family member or work for the Secretary of State’s office.

In the hearing, state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, alluded to elected officials turning in multiple ballots into the post office for mail-in voters. Other senators said they didn’t believe that was a bad thing. HB476 aims to ban people from delivering more than one ballot to the post office at a time.

“But if the ballot is legal, otherwise, what’s wrong with someone picking a ballot up and turning it in?” state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, asked.

Kleinpeter suggested that information could be taken or the ballots could be tampered with.

“Most people don’t trust the mail system now, so we’re giving it to people that we don’t even know to deliver their ballot. How do we even know if they’re delivering it?” Kleinpeter said.

Mail-in ballots have grown in popularity since the pandemic. Louisiana has restrictions on who qualifies for an absentee ballot which includes people over 65, those who will be out of state during the election, people who work offshore, people who live in nursing homes, students who are attending higher education outside of their parish, and some other exceptions.

In 2020, 99,084 people voted early in the presidential primary by mail compared to 103,099 in person. That year also saw an expanded mail-in ballot process for the height of the pandemic. For the presidential primary this year, 61,127 people voted early by mail as compared to the 56,516 who voted early in person.

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The Secretary of State also wants to crack down on who is running voter registration drives. Advocacy groups around the state will go to events to get people to sign up to vote. HB506 would require those groups to register with the Secretary of State’s office before they could hold one of the voter registration drives.

“It’s just common-sense changes. We don’t feel like they are onerous or burdensome. We think it’ll protect our elderly and disabled from some nefarious organizations that are trying to take advantage of them,” Landry said.

Each of these bills are working their way through the regular legislative session which lasts until June 3.

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