The Nov. 8 election will be the first ballot in Louisiana history where more than 3 million people will be eligible to vote, according to Meg Casper, press secretary for Secretary of State Tom Schedler.
The state surpassed the 3 million threshold during this most recent drive to register people to vote in the presidential election.
Compared to roughly one year ago, there was an overall increase of 61,424 registrations.
Some new trends did bubble to the surface. For example, after several years of being one of the fastest growing segments of the electorate, non-party voters increased by only 21,211. That category was outstripped this election cycle by the growth among Republicans, which added 26,425 new voters. Democrats saw an increase of 13,788.
The boost in Republican registration is being credited in part to Louisiana’s closed presidential primary earlier this year. A few candidates, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, put considerable resources into a registration push and a number of conservative voters may have signed up to participate due to the popularity of Donald Trump.
The secretary of state’s office saw its biggest jump in both September and October, with more than 61,400 voters being added to the rolls, or about 30,000 each month.
The most significant push came from Facebook, which ran internal ads to get voters registered between Sept. 20 and Sept. 27 for National Voter Registration Month. That drive from the social media giant resulted in 21,704 registrations.
The largest growth area across the board was with new voters, ages 18 to 34.
The registration process is now closed for participating in the Nov. 8 primary election, but voters can still sign up until Nov. 9 for the Dec. 10 runoff elections.