A Louisiana advocacy group for the disabled has asked a federal court to drop its voting-rights lawsuit after Disability Rights Louisiana failed to find any instance of officials rejecting a disabled voter’s ballot in November or December of last year.
The advocacy group’s memorandum for voluntary dismissal of its July 2024 lawsuit challenging the legality of Acts 302, 317, 380 and 712 was filed Feb. 12 in the Middle District of Louisiana. Disability Rights Louisiana had argued in its initial complaint that the passage of these four measures last year would ”disenfranchise hundreds or thousands of individuals with disabilities.”
Two of the statutes barred anyone from assisting with the delivery of more than one person’s absentee ballot and provided criminal penalties for offenders. The laws, however, do not apply to immediate family members. Similarly, the other two laws bar people from serving as witnesses for more than a single non-family absentee voter.
Disability Rights Louisiana had argued that the laws violated Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act because they restricted the disabled and others from seeking voting assistance from “a person of the voter’s choice.” The group sought a preliminary and permanent injunction to prevent disabled voters from having their ballots disqualified, either through actions of the secretary of state or the state attorney general.
“Based on … information-gathering since the election, plaintiff has not yet identified an instance during the November or December 2024 elections where defendants, or another Louisiana state or parish official, in fact declined to accept a ballot or otherwise enforced the laws in a manner that caused the ballot of a voter with a disability to be discounted,” the plaintiff’s memorandum states.
The Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office expressed satisfaction with the move to drop the lawsuit, calling it frivolous.
“After utilizing scare tactics regarding Acts 302, 317, 380 and 712, the plaintiffs were forced to admit that they found no voters who were denied their right to vote in the November or December elections as a result of these new election-integrity measures,” Joel Watson, Secretary of State Nancy Landry’s spokesman, said in an email to the Louisiana Record. “Quite the opposite of the plaintiffs’ baseless allegations is true as these new laws protect the most vulnerable citizens in Louisiana from those who wish to unduly influence our elections.”
Secretary Landry will continue her work to defend the state’s election procedures and policies, Watson said, adding that those voting protections would make Louisiana first in the nation for election integrity.
The plaintiff’s court filing indicates that Disability Rights Louisiana continues to view the new laws as violating provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act. The memorandum asks Judge John DeGravelles to dismiss the complaint without prejudice so that a similar action could potentially be brought at a future date.
“Plaintiff respectfully seeks to reserve the right to bring claims to enforce Section 208 at a later time if defendants or other Louisiana elections officials proceed to enforce the statutes at issue in a manner that contravenes the voting rights that Section 208 guarantees to persons with disabilities,” the memorandum states.
The lawsuit is currently in its initial phase in that no discovery proceedings have begun, nor has a trial date been set.
In July of last year, a federal judge rejected the plaintiff’s call to temporarily block enforcement of the laws, finding that the timing for such an action would be too close to the coming elections.