nancy landry SoS LA

===}:

an 6 24

under renewed pressure from right-wing election deniers, the Louisiana Legislature abandoned its attempt to repeal a 2021 law that has made the task of buying voting machines overly burdensome.

House Bill 856, sponsored by Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, died just one step shy of final passage during the closing days of the 2024 legislative session after Johnson ended conference committee negotiations.

The proposal would have repealed parts of a 2021 law that added multiple layers of bureaucracy to the Louisiana Department of State’s process to purchase new voting systems. The most significant parts of the bill were created through a late-stage amendment adopted on the Senate floor last week.

In an interview Sunday, Johnson said he decided to sideline the bill after some constituents and other lawmakers expressed concerns with the “process” used to amend the bill into its final version.

Typically, most scrutiny and vetting of legislation occurs during committee hearings before a bill reaches the floor of a chamber, so late-stage floor amendments that make big changes to a bill can sometimes generate pushback from other lawmakers or constituents.

Johnson’s legislation began as a simple one-page bill to add a short clause to an existing statute, making the secretary of state responsible for all “voting system maintenance and repair.” That version of the bill sailed through both chambers without opposition. It wasn’t until a May 8 Senate & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing when lawmakers first hinted at the possibility of an amendment.

At the hearing, lawmakers asked Secretary of State Nancy Landry for an update on the purchase of new voting machines. Landry, a Republican, said it was her “number one priority” but that the 2021 law had turned the acquisition into a “long and drawn out process.”

In a later interview, Landry’s spokesperson, Joel Watson, said the process involves multiple layers of bureaucratic red tape that will delay the purchase of new voting machines an additional two years.

The 2021 law created the Voting System Commission within the Louisiana Department of State. Composed of government officials who serve without compensation, the commission is charged with analyzing any available voting systems and recommending a specific type to the secretary of state. It also created a separate Voting System Proposal Evaluation Committee to independently review vendors that submitted bids before making a final recommendation.

Senate & Governmental Affairs Committee members only briefly discussed the bureaucratic issues at the May 8 hearing and advanced the original version of Johnson’s bill without amendments. It wasn’t until May 29 when the bill came up for a Senate floor vote that the public and most lawmakers saw the extent of the changes Landry was requesting through an amendment from Sen. Mike Reese, R-Leesville. Still, the new amended version of the bill cleared the chamber with unanimous support.

The amended version proposed to keep both the Voting System Commission and the Voting System Proposal Evaluation Committee with some small changes. It would have repealed requirements that the secretary of state create rules for the purchase of voting machines and hire at least three independent experts to certify them.

===