The Louisiana State Legislature is close to passing House Bill 906 would allow the state Republican and Democratic parties to decide whether to allow politically independent voters from casting their ballot in Louisiana primary elections in the future. As Louisiana Public Radio reports, this change could affect some, many or even all of the state’s more than 813,000 so-called “no party” voters from choosing major party candidates.
Democratic Senator Sam Jenkins of Shreveport expressed concern. “It’s like we’re going in a direction to me that candidates and parties are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their candidates.”
Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry testified before the State Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. During testimony she explained, “This bill allows the state's central committees of the major political parties to decide through their bylaws whether to allow or prohibit no party voters from participating in their primaries. It's not a mandate, and it's not a state-imposed rule, but it gives control to the parties.”
These ‘no party’ voters would still be able to cast ballots in general elections. Democrats on the committee expressed concern that this year’s change to closed party primaries created confusion and another change could make things worse. The bill cleared the committee along party lines and now heads to the full Louisiana Senate.
This is the not the first time for Louisiana has traveled down this path. In fact, 18 years ago, back in 2008, and again in 2010, Louisiana held party primaries, but only for federal races. The jungle primary system was still used in state and local elections. In a jungle primary, the ballot has all the candidates running against each other. If no one receives more than half the votes, the top two vote getters compete in a run-off election.
The first attempts at the party primary system in Louisiana in 2008 and 2010 proved so unpopular that Louisiana lawmakers reverted back to the jungle primary system in 2011, after the 2010 elections.
So, 2026 becomes the first election cycle since then, in which Louisiana has reinstated the party primaries. this time it’s a semi-closed primary system with independents allowed to take part. The format is only being used for congressional races, along with seats on the Louisiana Supreme Court, Public Service Commission, and the Louisiana state school board, better known as BESE, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. In the future, exclusion of independent voters may prove increasingly problematic. According to new polling from Gallup News, a record-high 45% of U.S. adults identify as political independents, making them the largest single political bloc in the country By comparison, 27% identify as Democrats and 27% as Republicans.
