Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry suspends primary elections after declaring a State of Emergency following the Supreme Court’s 6–3 evisceration of the Voting Rights Act:

Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters. This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map.

Translation: The current congressional map gives too much—and by “too much” I mean “the slightest bit of”—electoral power to Democratic voters (who, in an inexplicable coincidence, happen to be mostly minorities). We are creating a new map that consolidates power in the hands of conservative Republicans (who, again coincidentally, happen to be mostly white).

(In their rush to release this executive order, they misspelled “executive” in the filename: JML-Exective-Order-26-038.pdf.)

AP News reports that early voting was set to start May 2 for the May 16 primaries. Absentee ballots were already mailed out and some have already been returned. Only voting for the U.S. House of Representatives was canceled; Senate and state offices remain eligible. I’m confident this won’t be the only election suspended in 2026. Naturally, a lawsuit was immediately filed, reports Democracy Docket:

The lawsuit filed Thursday, claims Louisiana crossed various Constitutional lines by stopping an election in progress. […]

“Suspending only the U.S. House primary while leaving in place” all other races “supports a strong inference of intentional discrimination on the basis of race,” the plaintiffs wrote.

I’m eager to see how Louisiana defends itself. My guess is it’ll be something classic, like, “When the Supreme Court says you can do it, it’s not illegal.”