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Those in favor of keeping tolls on the Crescent City Connection have won another legal round.
A state judge in Baton Rouge says a recount of some of votes in the measure to extend tolls on the CCC is final. The recount and challenge did not change the outcome of the razor-thin results of the vote that will extend the tolls for another 20 years on the bridge over the Mississippi River.
Attorney Pat Hand, one of the leaders of the opposition movement against the toll extension, describes the outcome:
"There were 18 more votes in favor of the extension, the opposite way of what we need it to go," Hand told WWL Radio News.
Listen to attorney Pat Hand:
The attorney says he will not give up the fight to strike down the toll extension.
In his legal challenge, Hand insists that hundreds of voters who should have been given ballots to vote on the tolls were mistakenly not allowed to vote on the issue and that at least one poll worker was telling voters that their taxes would go up if they didn't vote to keep the taxes.
What's the next step?
"We go to trial on March 4th and 5th relative to the nullification," Hand says.
According to Hand, more than 1,600 voters did not have the opportunity to vote on the measure to extend the tolls.
"They were denied their constitutional right to vote. They were given a provisional ballot that contained only several elections, it did not contain the local Crescent City toll proposition."
