Re-Vote Possible for Lafayette Parish on City-Parish Deconsolidation

Earlier this week, Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux was contacted by the Louisiana Secretary of State’s (SOS) office and informed that the Secretary of State was unable to “certify” December’s election results for the Deconsolidation Charter Amendment to split the City-Parish Council.

Although Lafayette voters approved the Charter Amendment, Louisiana’s Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin notified Robideaux that due to errors on both the mapping and descriptions of Precincts in the Charter document, he was unable to “certify” the election results of this particular item.

According to documents obtained from the Lafayette Consolidated Government, at this time possible errors are being reviewed in City Council District’s: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Precinct’s 6, 7, 23, 34, 35, 49, 53, 72, 73, 79, and others.

> Example of errors being reviewed: In Precinct 23, documents of the Ordinance state it is listed in both City Council District 1 and 5. However, the mapping for Precinct 23 shows it all in District 1.

The Secretary of State has requested written information and/or some type of conclusion on this matter from LCG’s legal department. A meeting has been scheduled for Monday morning (2/25/19) between LCG and SOS officials to further discuss the situation.

If Secretary Ardoin determines that the errors cannot be amended by an Ordinance of the City-Parish Council, public discussion of a City-Parish Council split would have to start again. Should that be the case, the Charter Amendment would have to be resubmitted by Mid-March in order to appear on this Fall’s ballot.  

As this is an ongoing story, we will update it as more information becomes available.