Louisiana might seem an unlikely battleground for claims that the 2020 election was rigged to steal the election from then-President Donald Trump. After all, Trump won Louisiana’s electoral votes by a huge margin, garnering even more votes here than he did in 2016.
But a growing movement of Republicans in Louisiana, some linked to the MyPillow CEO and election fraud conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, have spent months pushing a theory that Louisiana’s elections are rife with fraud.
While election officials and independent watchdogs say voter fraud is exceedingly rare in Louisiana and elsewhere, the movement could have ramifications on Louisiana’s long-running effort to choose new voting machines, the 2023 election for secretary of state and the broader direction of the Louisiana Republican Party, which dominates statewide politics.
Since the 2020 election, the former chief executives of two major Louisiana corporations embarked on a tour to speak to Republican groups about what they believe are systemic problems with the state's elections. They created a report that purports to back up their claims, and sent supporters on door-to-door canvasses to try and prove the voter rolls are inaccurate.
Yet, Republican candidates were big winners around Louisiana in 2020, and again last fall. The easy victories posted by Trump and Louisiana’s congressional Republicans also were consistent with the history of the last few decades, with GOP candidates winning by ever-larger margins in a state that, two decades ago, was purple or even blue.
Moreover, clerks of court, registrars of voters, state election officials and auditors all agree that claims about widespread or systemic fraud in Louisiana’s elections are baseless.
“It would take a lot of collusion to commit massive voter fraud in Louisiana,” said Chris Magee of the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office, which conducted an audit last year of the state’s election systems at the request of lawmakers. “We found little areas that could be improved on…But we didn’t find anything glaring that would make us come to the conclusion that we don’t have integrity in Louisiana’s elections.”
Going door to door
Despite the evidence to the contrary, the national effort by Trump supporters to sow doubt about U.S. elections has taken root in Louisiana.
Earlier this year, Randy Russ, who was CEO of Community Coffee more than a decade ago, and John Scanlan, former president of Eatel, which was acquired by another firm in 2018, sent an email to Louisiana district attorneys, registrars of voters and clerks of court promoting “2,000 Mules,” a movie that purports to show evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. A wide range of media outlets and experts have said the movie is full of gaping holes.
The two men helped spearhead a canvass in Ascension Parish to try to root out fraud, saying the voters listed at certain addresses didn’t live there. At one point, some in their group of about 50 volunteers knocked on the door of Donaldsonville’s mayor, a Democrat, who told them to get off his lawn, volunteer Christy Haik recounted in a radio interview.
Scanlan and Russ declined to comment for this story. But in radio and YouTube appearances, the two have alleged a complex web of fraud, involving fake addresses, stolen identities, forged signatures and manipulation of Louisiana’s voting machines.
“Folks think we’re just going to give up and go away,” Randy Russ said on a radio show hosted by conservative columnist and radio show host Jeff Crouere. “But our very constitutional republic is at stake here. And the civil rights of our citizens are being violated.”
Several clerks of court and registrars say claims of many irregularities can be easily explained. For instance, Steve Raborn, registrar of voters in East Baton Rouge Parish, said young people often maintain their voter registration at their parents’ house well after moving out. There’s nothing wrong with doing so. And claims that voter rolls grow before elections owe to laws preventing officials from removing people from the rolls right before an election, others say.
“It’s frustrating because we work so hard,” said Shanie Bourg, registrar of voters for Ascension Parish. “I know elections operations inside and out. I know how this process works. There are checks and balances in place. The general public, they don’t know that.”
Lenar Whitney, a former state legislator who is now Republican National Committeewoman for Louisiana, has also been pushing bogus claims about the stolen election in various forums. On a recent radio interview, she said she wants Lindell, the conspiracy theorist, to win the election for RNC chair, saying she’s been working “hand in hand” with him and recently hosted him at Jimmy Swaggart’s church in Baton Rouge.
In a letter to Louisiana Republicans, Whitney touted Lindell as the only candidate for RNC chair who could make things right.
“I am convinced now, more than ever, that the only path to a righteous outcome in American elections will be provided by a return to hand marked ballots printed on secure paper,” she wrote. “THE ONLY PERSON ADVOCATING SUCH A TRUE NORTH COURSE IS MIKE LINDELL.”
The January 6th Committee’s final report, released last month, spotlighted the role of an unnamed former Louisiana legislator in the “Stop the Steal” movement. It said the ex-lawmaker texted Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in December 2020 recommending the proposed “Trump electors from AR [sic] MI GA PA WI NV all meet next Monday at their state capitols call themselves to order, elect officers, and cast their votes for the President. . . . Then they certify their votes and transmit that certificate to Washington.”
Meadows replied: “We are,” according to the report.
It’s unclear who the former state legislator was. Whitney said in an email she did not text Meadows. She declined to answer questions about her efforts surrounding voter fraud.
A challenge to Ardoin
Brandon Trosclair, a grocery store owner in Ascension Parish who said he has long been friends with Scanlan and relies on him and Russ for advice, is jumping in the race to unseat Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin this year.
Trosclair, like Ardoin a Republican, said in an interview that he believes Louisiana’s elections are being “manipulated.” He said Lindell has helped provide advice to the group of people probing Louisiana’s elections.
Lindell did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Trosclair said his No. 1 priority if being elected is moving Louisiana to a paper ballot system. Clerks and other elections officials have almost uniformly pushed back against the idea, calling it impractical. Officials do broadly agree Louisiana should get new machines that have a paper component and audit capabilities to replace the state’s aging machines. But an effort to get new machines has been stalled by challenges to the bid process and pressure from Republican elected officials sympathetic to claims of voter fraud.
Trosclair said he’s not swayed by the legislative audit that blessed Louisiana’s elections, calling it a “Mickey Mouse audit.”
Ardoin said in a statement that “no other agency has a higher requirement for accuracy and accountability” than his own.
“While I have stood by our gold-standard policies and procedures, a small group of naysayers have chosen to spread falsehoods about how our elections are run, and the work being done by an incredible team of local election officials,” he said. “I will always defend the work we do to deliver safe, secure, and accurate elections to the people of Louisiana."
