Since 1977 state elections in Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 have used a jungle primary

Jungle primary

A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for elected office run in the same primary regardless of political party. Under this system, the top two candidates who receive the most votes advance to the next round, as in a runoff election...

 system, which in Louisiana has become known as "open" primary, where all the candidates for an office

Office

An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...

 run together in one election. If someone gets a majority

Majority

A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population...

, that individual wins outright; otherwise, the top two candidates, irrespective of partisan affiliation, meet in a runoff election. Between 2008 and 2010, federal

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

 races no longer used this method. In 2010, the legislature voted to revert federal elections back to the jungle primary system with the passage of House Bill 292, which was signed into law by Governor Jindal on June 25, 2010.

Louisiana is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd-numbered years. (The others are Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, and Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

). Louisiana holds elections for these offices every four years in the year preceding a Presidential election. Thus, the two most recent gubernatorial elections in Louisiana took place in 2003 and 2007.

Louisiana is one of 18 states that run separate elections for Governor

Governor

A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...

 and Lieutenant Governor

Lieutenant governor

A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...

, a process that has resulted in Governor-Lieutenant Governor pairs from different parties and/or widely differing political ideologies. For example, current Governor Bobby Jindal

Bobby Jindal

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party....

 is a Republican, while former Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu

Mitch Landrieu

Mitchell Joseph "Mitch" Landrieu is the Mayor of New Orleans, former Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, and a member of the Landrieu family. Landrieu is a member of the Democratic Party and a Roman Catholic. He is the son of former New Orleans mayor and Secretary of the United States Department of...

 (who has since been elected as Mayor of New Orleans) is a Democrat.

The current Commissioner of Elections is Angie LaPlace.

External links

• Geaux Vote at the Louisiana Secretary of State official website
• Louisiana Elections & Politics from The Times-Picayune newspaper