In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana voters and election administrators will face numerous challenges that threaten to undermine the state’s democratic processes. A key concern is that with thousands of displaced voters living without stable mailing addresses, absentee voting will be difficult.

Louisiana currently uses a two-round runoff system that will exacerbate this problem, because absentee voters will have to receive and return ballots not once, but twice, within a very short period of time. With the rapid changes occurring in many hurricane victims' lives, it is unclear that their mailing addresses will be the same between the first and second round elections. Louisiana therefore expand its current use of ranked ballots for overseas voters to include displaced Hurricane Katrina victims, to ensure that these voters are not disenfranchised in the state's runoff elections.

[ Read FairVote's Full Proposal ]