Editor’s Note: A guest post by Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry.

A recent opinion piece in The Hayride, ironically titled “The Truth Regarding Our Elections,” was full of falsehoods about recent actions by the Republican Party of Louisiana and the administration of our state’s elections.

First, the author, someone with no election administration experience herself, completely misrepresents the resolution the LAGOP’s State Central Committee passed on January 11, 2025. The resolution, entitled “A resolution regarding the capacity to conduct a complete recount…in all Louisiana elections,” stated that “the Republican Party of Louisiana will continue to urge the implementation of an election system in Louisiana that utilizes a paper ballot and/or an auditable paper component…” Who could possibly be against a voting system that utilizes an auditable paper component? I fully support such a system and ran on implementing one as my number one priority as Secretary of State. In fact, Louisiana law requires this component in our next voting system.

However, in reading the author’s piece, you would think that the party and the public at-large were both crying out for hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. Quite the opposite is true. The truth is that most Louisianans support a new system similar to what we have now with the addition of a paper backup. A poll conducted last year showed that only 15% of the state’s voters wanted a paper-only system, and in the 2023 race for Secretary of State, only 6% of voters supported the candidate whose platform promised hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. The voters know that switching to a hand-counted paper ballot system would result in days or weeks-long wait for returns and an error rate of anywhere from eight percent (per an MIT study in New Hampshire) to 42 percent (per a Rice University study utilizing just 120 ballots). I don’t know of a single person who thinks that waiting days for wildly inaccurate results would be a good replacement for our current voting system—and that’s why I would never recommend such a program.

The attempts by some to spread falsehoods about the safety of our elections and how they work have predictably backfired. In February of last year, 61% of Louisiana voters stated that they thought our elections were safe and secure. In October that number jumped to 70% thanks to my office’s intensive efforts to educate the public on “the truth regarding our elections.” The voters trust our elections because they know that we have the policies and procedures in place to ensure the continued integrity of our system. They have repeatedly rejected the lies and the unserious proposals to radically alter our voting system and move it back to the days of Huey Long.

We are moving through the process of procuring a new voting system by following the procedures laid out by the Louisiana Legislature. The next system will have an auditable paper backup, which will give us the ability to perform risk-limiting audits on our election results. This is the primary goal I have as Secretary of State.

The voters don’t want an outdated, disastrous system that has proven to be costly, inaccurate, and time-consuming. I am committed to implementing a safe and effective system that maintains and improves the integrity of our already stellar elections. It is time for the facts to shine—Louisiana’s elections are secure, and our record proves it. Reliable election information comes from elections officials, not uninformed political activists.