BATON ROUGE — Early voting numbers show a decrease in voter turnout in Louisiana as compared to the 2020 election, with fewer Black voters heading to the polls ahead of Nov. 5.

More than 761,000 registered voters statewide have already cast early ballots, down from nearly 1 million in 2020. Of the 3 million registered voters in the state, 942,000 are Black, but less than 20 percent have voted early. 

Louisiana State Conference NAACP President Michael McClanahan stressed the importance of every vote.

“To see that the numbers are at the bottom is really alarming—it’s troubling because we can turn around a whole lot of things if we elect the person that speaks for us,” he said.

McClanahan noted that people sacrificed for the right to vote and those sacrifices should not be forgotten.

“Blood, sweat, and tears bought this country, pushed it forward. We all stand on somebody's shoulders,” McClanahan said.

In the East Baton Rouge Parish mayoral race, more than 73,000 voters have cast early ballots, but only 26,000 are Black voters. McClanahan said his organization is going door to door and making phone calls to continue pushing for increased turnout.

“The work that we do does matter because when we vote, we win—when we vote, we all win."