NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Mayor LaToya Cantrell has assembled a legal team to look into the consent judgement made between election officials and the group that organized the recall effort to unseat the mayor.
Attorney Marion Floyd is a member of the team being assembled.
Floyd contends that the decision to remove 25,000 Orleans Parish voters from the active voter rolls was improper, “There are strict time frames when the petition has to be filed, what the actual percentage is, and when the secretary of state has to basically say thumbs up or thumbs down and in this case that did not happen.
A couple of public officials are also speaking out against the decision. Yesterday State Rep. Mandie Landry published a statement on social media saying in part, “The decision by the court to allow the parties to “settle” on the amount of active votes is, in my opinion as a lawyer and a legislator, not following Louisiana Law.
Here is a copy of the final consent judgement agreed to by the Louisiana Secretary of State and the organizers of the NOLATOYA recall:
Floyd contends, “When the recall proponents filed their petition, the number was frozen at that time. Whatever the number of electors the voters in Orleans Parish has identified with the secretary of state was captured, that’s the number. There is no provision in the law to change it to go up or down.”
This week Councilmember-at-Large Helena Moreno also released a statement calling for transparency from the secretary of state and the Orleans registrar’s office, and some in the community have called the settlement Black voter disenfranchisement.
Floyd stated that the mayor’s legal team is exploring their options, “The are several other legal processes available, we aren’t sold on any one yet. The team is researching what the options are, but the goal again is to insure a fair election that each and every citizen of Orleans Parish is properly considered.”
Click here for the statement released by Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s office regarding the final consent judgement.