As he watched a crew make repairs to his wind-shorn roof Friday, Roosevelt Williams didn't need reminding about today's mayoral election. There's too much at stake in rebuilding his city to skip voting, he said.
Almost eight months after Hurricane Katrina deconstructed nearly everything in this city, voters such as Williams will head to the polls today to decide whether they should change mayors. And like most things connected with the city these days, the questions on Election Day are dramatic:
•Will voters trade controversial incumbent C. Ray Nagin for the city's first white mayor in three decades?
• Will white voters have a larger voice than usual in this election since so many black residents were driven from the city by flood damage?
•Will large numbers of displaced residents make the trip back to the city from temporary homes in other cities to vote in person?
With 23 candidates on the primary ballot, analysts say it would be difficult for one candidate to get a majority of votes in today's balloting. If that's the case, the top two vote-getters will proceed to a runoff on May 20; Nagin and challengers Mitch Landrieu and Ron Forman are given the best chances of making the final cut.
"I'm going to vote for Nagin, myself," Williams said. "If I vote for someone who doesn't know the system, they'll have to start all over."
There aren't many neighbors left on Desire Street for Williams to talk city politics with, just the jumble of empty, flooded-out houses visible all across the 9th Ward. He says it's hard to even guess at what turnout will be like because people are so scattered.
"I think the interest level is very high," Louisiana Secretary of State Al Ater said Friday. "I think a lot of people are going to be surprised."
More than 20,000 voters had cast ballots by Thursday afternoon — a combination of early votes cast at 10 satellite centers statewide and another 9,200 mail-in votes.
Ater warned that because polls are open until 8 p.m., "Louisiana voters have grown used to not knowing until Sunday morning who won an election."
He says if the count follows the usual pattern, the results should be known by midnight.
Because so many of the city's polling places were destroyed in the flooding, voters are being directed to much larger, consolidated polling places. That factor alone may put a damper on turnout, predicts political analyst Greg Rigamer of GCR & Associates.
"Now, a significant percentage of the population is gone, but just as importantly, you've gone from voting in your neighborhoods to voting in super polling places," Rigamer said. "Now there's a different location, maybe more of an ordeal for transportation and accessibility.
"Sure, there's a lot of interest," Rigamer said. "But the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH organization and Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church say they will send busloads of displaced voters to New Orleans today.
Those sections of the city with the least damage and the most traffic are blanketed with candidates billboards and posters as well as signs directing voters to a 1-800 voting information number.
Ed Renwick, director of the Loyola Institute of Politics, said that though candidates have made campaign stops in surrounding states to reach evacuees, most of the nuts-and-bolts campaigning has been local.
"There are a lot of people not in New Orleans, but still in the (local television) viewing audience," Renwick said. "And some of them are advertising on Baton Rouge television stations, which is another source of displaced New Orleans residents. If you're sitting in New Orleans, it looks pretty much like other campaigns."
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