Louisiana pushes presidential primary back to April in 2020

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana will shuffle election dates in 2020, moving the presidential primary from March to April because of Easter-related scheduling conflicts.

Lawmakers made the adjustment in an elections bill sent to the governor.

Under the change, Louisiana's presidential and municipal primary will be held April 4 next year, rather than its originally scheduled March 7 date.

After 2020, the primary will revert back to the first Saturday in March.

The secretary of state's office said the municipal general election, which comes five weeks after the primary, would have fallen on Easter weekend.

Moving all elections up a week would have pushed Louisiana's presidential primary to Feb. 29, the same day as South Carolina's primary. The secretary of state's office says national political party rules forbid that.