Louisiana will reportedly postpone its April presidential primary in response to the coronavirus crisis.
According to local news reports, the April 4 primary will be postponed during a press conference on Friday, and will be pushed back two months.
Primaries in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio next week, however, will remain on schedule.
In a joint statement, the four states said, “we are working closely with out state health officials to ensure that our poll workers and voters can be confident that voting is safe.”
“Unlike concerts, sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate in a confined space for an extended period of time, polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration,” the statement explained. “Further, guidance from voting machine manufacturers on how best to sanitize machines, guidance from CDC on best practices for hand washing, and guidance from our respective state health officials is being provided to every polling location.”
“Americans have participated in elections during challenging times in the past, and based on the best information we have from public health officials, we are confident that voters in our states can safely and securely cast their ballots in this election, and that otherwise healthy poll workers can and should carry out their patriotic duties on Tuesday,” they concluded.
This article has been updated to include a statement from Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio.