Voting method: one shared selector applies Whole Election, Early Vote or Election Day to both compared sources. Whole-election turnout uses official post-election voter-credit statistics; Early Vote uses the dated early/absentee reports. The early-voter poll is available under Early Vote only. Separate Election Day participant totals have not been established from compatible official sources and are unavailable for Turnout; Election Day candidate results are available under Results. Received early/mail ballots are not subtracted from audited final voter credit to fabricate an Election Day count. These whole-election statistics are read directly from official reports, not constructed by assigning individual early voters to precincts.
Results: parish returns support all three methods. Whole Election includes all reported methods, including provisional votes; Early Vote and Election Day use their separately reported components. The supplied precinct returns cover Election Day only; early/absentee and provisional votes are reported separately at parish level and are not allocated to precincts. Candidate shares use all valid contest votes. Results compare the selected Democratic, Republican or candidate vote share. Party shares combine all candidates in that party and use all valid contest votes as the denominator. Change is the second share minus the first share. Differences between percentages are labeled as percentage points with one decimal. Poll support estimates with two to four answers use dotted arrows. Five or more answers use solid arrows; zero or one answer has no displayed support estimate. Dotted cells remain below the usual threshold and are not precise or representative local estimates.
Turnout groups: one shared selector applies the same group to both elections, totals, maps, details and downloads. Race options are White, Black and the source’s combined Other category. Party means voter registration at each election, not candidate choice. Other/no party combines all registration categories except Democrat and Republican for historical comparability. The race and party rows are alternative groupings: choosing a race resets party to All, and choosing a party resets race to All. Historical early-vote reports provide separate marginal totals; combined groups such as Black Democrats are not estimated. Voter count shows group participation; Turnout rate divides that count by registrations in the group.
Vote share: the selected race or registered-party group divided by all participants in the selected voting method in the same state, parish or precinct for that election. State and parish summaries divide summed group counts by summed all-voter counts, rather than averaging precinct percentages. The change is the second share minus the first share, calculated before display rounding (displayed as percentage points). Color spans a share decrease of 10.0 percentage points to an increase of 10.0 percentage points, with yellow at no change. Arrow width still shows the actual change in the group’s participant count. A zero all-voter total has no defined share. Registered party describes registration, not candidate support. Reporting cutoffs still apply.
Registration benchmarks: each election uses the latest available registration snapshot from its own calendar year, dated on or before that election, and matched to the same parish or exact reported precinct code. The reports include active and inactive registrations. No later-year, future-date, nearby-place or split/merged-code denominator is substituted. Vote-share representation compares the selected group’s share of participants with its share of registered voters; a positive gap is above its registered-voter share and a negative gap is below. Turnout rate divides group participants by registrations in that group. Missing or zero denominators and participant counts exceeding the dated registration count have no displayed rate. The participant numerator follows the selected voting method. The November 2026 snapshot covers early/absentee voting only; whole-election turnout is not yet available.
Turnout: the selected official series records either whole-election participation or early/absentee participation. For Voter count, color shows 100 × (second count − first count) ÷ first count. Zero change is yellow, increases are green and decreases are red; the scale reaches its endpoints at ±50%. Arrow width grows with the absolute change in participants, with a minimum size for visibility. Arrows have no outlines. A zero first count has no defined percentage change and uses gray, with arrow direction still showing the actual count change. Missing records stay unavailable. For Turnout rate, color compares registered-group participation rates (second rate minus first rate), with endpoints at ±10.0 percentage points. Reporting cutoffs appear in the election cards and can differ in completeness.
Precinct geography: source records are matched on normalized parish, ward and precinct codes. Current polygon anchors come from Louisiana Legislature precinct boundaries. Supplemental locations, where available, are aggregate current voter-file centroids. Historical boundary equivalence has not been established: these are reported-code comparisons, not returns reallocated to identical historical boundaries. Source precincts without a safe location remain in the table and download. Merged, split or missing codes are not guessed.
Symbols: result arrows point 45° upward left or right. Stem length represents the percentage difference; maximum width represents the selected vote-share change’s vote equivalent at the later historical contest’s turnout, or the selected historical turnout for poll comparisons. The stems taper from a narrow tail to a shoulder 35% of head width; head depth stays 85% of width. Stem length is calibrated to the selected percentage change; the head remains proportionate at its independently scaled voter width, without clipping the width or capping large changes. Poll vote equivalents are hypothetical, not November 2026 forecasts. Turnout arrows use the same narrow tail, widening stem and proportionate head as result arrows, pointing up for an increase and down for a decrease in the selected measure. Width grows with the absolute actual participant-count change. A flat bar marks no change or an undefined percentage; gray indicates undefined. Numeric annotations sit at the tail of the exact source arrow, within its parish boundary and show the selected change with one decimal; D or R names the direction of a party vote-share change. The statewide view highlights the five highest and five lowest parish changes, or fifty of each at precinct level. Ranked changes do not add boundary outlines, shading or dimming. Sparse numeric values stay attached to their arrow tails; ranked lists retain all outliers even when labels cannot fit. All comparable visible parishes and precincts can show values as space permits, with outliers prioritized and no fixed label limit; hovering or tapping any parish always shows its exact value. Annotations avoid symbols, controls and one another. Symbols and labels keep their screen size when zooming; precinct arrows use a compact length scale to keep dense areas readable.
Inventory: “Include minor elections” starts off and shows presidential, U.S. Senate general/runoff and governor contests, plus the current poll. Louisiana all-candidate governor elections are included even when called a primary. Other offices, local races, ballot measures and party-only primaries are available with the switch on. Turnout shows the latest available official report for each election date and voting method. The May 16, 2026 whole-election statewide total sums the consistent parish/precinct report (831,892); the independently printed statewide report differs by one participant. Both original reports are preserved in the source archive. Boundaries and aggregate data contain no individual voter or respondent records.
Comparison progress: daily historical snapshots have not been validated at equivalent points in the early-voting calendar. The current comparisons retain each source’s actual cutoff; a partial 2026 snapshot is not a completed electorate.
Fixed election choices: changing controls never replaces an election. Turnout uses official participation for the chosen election date, including when the selected contest is the 2026 poll. Survey respondent counts are never treated as turnout. Unsupported sources remain unavailable.
Map context: cities use current U.S. Census Gazetteer internal points; generalized rivers and Interstate highways use public-domain Natural Earth and USGS NHD data. They are orientation aids, not historical boundaries. Outliers are the highest and lowest changes among comparable source units in the current area; small-sample poll rankings are descriptive, not significance tests.
