BATON ROUGE— Gov. Jeff Landry signed an executive order he claims will "maintain integrity" in Louisiana's electoral process ahead of November's elections on Monday morning.

The executive order will require every state agency to inform anyone given a voter registration application that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in Louisiana's elections.

Under federal law, all state offices which provide any public service are also required to facilitate voter registration. It also requires the heads of state agencies require voter registration to work with the Secretary of State and Attorney General to ensure noncitizens are not registered to vote.

Secretary of State Nancy Landry says 48 noncitizens have been purged from the state's voter rolls since 2022. She argues that every ineligible voter harms the state's elections.

"We have multiple races every election season that are decided by fewer than 48 votes, including my own first election that was decided by 33 votes. So every vote is critical and every ineligible voter that is registered to vote opens the door to an ineligible voter voting," she said.

She also said she plans to prosecute those who voted illegally. 

The governor said that non-citizens voting is an issue that states like Virginia have seen in their elections.

"Virginia recently removed 6,000 non-citizens from their voter rolls, which highlights the fact that there are non-citizens registering to vote in our country," he said.

State Representative Edmond Jordan (D, Baton Rouge) says the level of illegally cast votes is not worth the intense level of scrutiny the governor and his administration have been placing on the issue, adding that it could even stop potential legal voters from registering.

"In a two-year time period, we've had 48 people out of hundreds of thousands of people registered to vote. Voting is a fundamental right. Anything that is done to suppress or put a chilling effect, we certainly should oppose," Jordan said.