Chapter 2 said that an election could be declared void and a new election called if it was impossible to determine the result of the election or if the result would have changed if the irregularities had not occurred. While this statute does not have the words “but for” in it, the reference to the changed election result is of the same import. Taken as a whole, this statute is similar to the standard announced, but not followed, by the court in Moreau where the majority decision gave great weight to the requirement that a complainant demonstrate that the irregularities cited would have changed the election result, and only lip service to the other prong of the formula: that the irregularities deprived voters of the free expression of their will.35 Thus, the Moreau decision is out of the mainstream of Louisiana election law. The court in Moreau diverges from the cases decided both before and after Moreau in its formulation of the standards by which to measure election irregularities. One explanation for this divergence is that the decision in Moreau flows from the supreme court’s characterization of the remedy adopted by the court of appeal in Moreau: The solution adopted by the Court of Appeal is innovative, and not necessarily productive of fair elections. The candidates are removed from the reach of the lawful election machinery, even though neither has been found responsible for fraud and irregularity, and neither can be held the winner “but for” the irregular votes. The irregularities found by the Court of Appeal are not so pervasive that the election must be nullified. At 4-5. Would the supreme court have decided the case differently if the court of appeal had simply ordered that a new election be held in the district instead of leaving the choice of the nominee up to the Democratic Committee? Or if it had ordered new balloting only in the precincts where the forged signatures and discrepant vote counts occurred? Perhaps, but it appears more likely that the Moreau decision is explained by a fairly common approach that courts take in election dispute cases: the court adopted a standard that allowed it to avoid overturning an election where it was not persuaded that the facts of the case were sufficiently compelling to provide grounds for overturning the results. This approach will be notable in the cases we will examine where, in the absence of fraud, courts routinely define election procedures as directory rather than mandatory. This, then, is why Moreau is worth studying. It is not just that sometimes dissenting opinions are correct, as they seem to be in Moreau. The lesson of Moreau—especially when viewed in light of the decisions in the Deffebach and Valence cases—is that if you file a lawsuit to challenge an election, even if there is a clear line of legal authority in your state that allows elections to be overturned on facts similar to yours, your battle to show that the will of the electorate has been thwarted will be a difficult one (and your chance of winning slim) if your proof does not show that irregularities occurred that changed the result of the election. In other words, without a showing that: • irregularities changed the result of an election, • irregularities made the outcome of the election impossible to determine, or • fraud took place, a court will not be persuaded to overturn the result of the election based on the irregularities that occurred. What, then, should we make of a claim that a new election should be ordered because the failure of elec35 The very restrictive “but for” requirement is no longer a part of Louisiana law. See Nugent v. Phelps, 816 So.2d 349, 357 (La. Ct. App. 2002): “Although a party contesting an election is no longer limited to the ‘but for’ standard, we note that a party contesting an election still must show at least that because of fraud or irregularities, the outcome of the election is impossible to determine.” 27