Release: On National Voter Registration Day, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin Blocks Voter Registration Online Portal

On National Voter Registration Day, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin Blocks Voter Registration Online Portal

BATON ROUGE, LA – As groups across the state pushed to register Louisianans on National Voter Registration Day, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin shut down the voter registration portal for several hours.

The closure of the voter registration portal came during the largest national voter registration push of the year, just 43 days before the Nov. 3 election.

Katie Bernhardt, Chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party released the following statement:

“As Democrats across the state are engaging voters for the coming election, Republican Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has a pattern of attempting to suppress the vote. His plan to limit secure, expanded absentee voting was denied by a judge just days ago.

“Ardoin has demonstrated time and again that he only values and promotes the right to vote for some, not all. On a day when his office should encourage voter registration and participation in our democracy, he blocked it. This was gross incompetence at best and blatant voter suppression at worst. Either way, this failure is an embarrassment.”