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I contacted the Elections Media Division of the website of the Louisiana Secretary of State. I spoke with Jacque. I asked him if there is any way the Elections Divison could hook up in some sort of on - the - ground partnership with FEMA - should Hurricane Gustav deliver its disaster. Jacque said there would be no need. Jacque said the following re: temporary evacuees in the context of a "what if" scenario: let's say people temporarily evacuate to Texas. Let's assume their local Louisiana registrations are valid and active. Jacque said those temporary evacuees would have to request absentee applications for absentee ballots by mail. The absentee application for an absentee ballot, once received by the Louisiana resident temporarily in Texas could be mailed back to Louisiana. The Louisiana officials would then mail the absentee ballot to the temporary Texas location. Several things can happen from that point: the voter would need to find out if Louisiana and Texas will set up temporary polling locations in Texas/Louisiana border towns for physical voting as was done once in the past or if oncoming local elections would be delayed - as in the past. Jacques said that extra Louisiana as well as Texas elections workers were "deputized" for this purpose of the temporary polling locations in Texas/Louisiana border towns.
I asked Jacque about the above scenarios and provisional voting. He said even if the voters, due to a lack of paperwork were forced to cast provisional ballots, he said that as long as the voters provided the necessary proof within the 10 day time frame after the election, election officials ensure that the Provisional votes cast are rendered into Regular votes. Jacque did say that with the Texas/Louisiana border towns' temporary polling locations, that the particular election he knew of, was for only one municipality, which was why they were able to get multiple elections officials freed up to help. He emphasized that it worked well on a small scale.
