BATON ROUGE - Early voting for the June 27 election in Louisiana wrapped up Saturday, and the numbers show a large drop-off compared to the May election.So far, 151,637 voters in Louisiana have cast their ballots. That is more than 100,000 fewer than during early voting for the May 16 closed primar y.nbsp;"There was a significant and dramatic drop off in early voting between May and June across all demographics. It's almost certain that the election day in June will have an extremely low turnout as well,rdquo; WBRZ Political Analyst James Hartman said.Turnout was down across the board. Hartman believes that voters were far more motivated to head to the polls in May than this month.nbsp;ldquo;Because of the redistricting that took away one of the majority-minority congressional seats, which had folks fired up, and they were also motivated on the Republican side to either support Senator Cassidy or oust Senator Cassidy. The five constitutional amendments, that was simply voter distrust of government across the board."WBRZ asked Hartman how there would be such a large drop-off in only a short amount of time.nbsp;"People have very short memories when it comes to the things that motivate them or make them angry politically, so it's not terribly shocking that that drop off has been there,rdquo; Hartman said.Hartman was also asked if the recent weather deterred a large number of people from going to vote."Certainly Tropical Storm Arthur's impact late last week could've had some impact, but early voting is a seven-day experience, so folks who really wanted to could've,rdquo; Hartman said.The Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, a voting advocacy group, says limited public awareness also played a role."It came six weeks after the May primary, and a lot of voters had no idea this election was even happening,rdquo; The Coalitionrsquo;s Director of Governmental Affairs and Policy, Cree Matlock, said.Hartman does say that the low voter turnout actually tends to help local tax propositions on the ballot such as for the EBR Library and Council of Aging on next Saturdayrsquo;s election."Lower voter turnout does favor, in this particular case, the taxing bodies with propositions on this ballot because they are going to mobilize their own voters, while there is no organized opposition to mobilize people,rdquo; Hartman said.The Louisiana Democratic Party expects voter activity to spike on election day.nbsp;"Wersquo;re also getting involved ourselves at the Louisiana Democratic Party. We're hitting the road. We're going to do a 14-city tour across seven different regions across our state over the course of the next two months, and it's going to be phenomenal,rdquo; Party Executive Director Dadrius Lanus said.nbsp;WBRZ reached out to the Republican Party of Louisiana for a statement on early voting, but has not heard back.nbsp;Election day is June 27.nbsp;Permalink| Comments ...read more read less