In a victory for recall organizers, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin on Wednesday agreed to slash the number of signatures needed to force a vote on Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s future, prompting a sharp rebuke from the mayor and raising the stakes of an ongoing count of thousands of names.
The deal between Ardoin, a Republican, and leaders of the campaign to recall Cantrell, a Democrat, was aimed at settling a lawsuit alleging that the city’s voter list contains thousands of people who have moved out of New Orleans or have died.
No one will be removed from the voter rolls as a direct result of the deal, which Civil District Court Judge Jennifer Medley endorsed Wednesday afternoon.
Instead, Ardoin’s office agreed that for the purposes of the recall campaign alone, there should have been 25,000 fewer people on the city’s list of active voters. Under state law, that cuts the number of signatures needed to force a recall vote by 5,000, or 10% of the 49,976 that was previously required.