BATON ROUGE — Figures from the Louisiana Secretary of State's office show that early voting was up 60 percent from the last comparable election, even though most parishes don't have major local issues at stake.

Across Louisiana, 39 parishes have only the already-decided presidential primaries on the ballot, along with races for state political committees. Of those, 32 have still seen more voters this year, even though eight years ago the country still hadn't selected its presidential contenders.

This year's early voters totaled more than 163,000 — up from 100,000 four years ago. In 2020, the pandemic was raging and Louisiana's presidential primary was held during the summer, making it an outlier among election trends.

In East Baton Rouge Parish, turnout was up 40 percent. In addition to the party races, there's a special election for a southeast Baton Rouge school board seat and also municipal elections in Baker.

Election Day is Saturday