(The Center Square) — One candidate in the disputed Caddo Parish Sheriff’s race filed two amended campaign finance reports this month.
Democrat Henry Whitehorn, the former Shreveport police chief, filed the new reports on Feb. 1 with the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Candidates file amended campaign finance reports for several reasons, such as new contributions or expenditures or even errors on previous reports.
The amended reports superseded the old ones from the preelection period. Candidates are required to file their reports in a timely fashion with the board. Violations of the state’s campaign finance laws can result in a $10,000 fine and candidates can face daily fines for reports not filed in a timely fashion.
Both amended reports (links here and here) added in-kind contributions of $2,500 from the law office of Joshua Williams, which is where Whitehorn has his campaign headquarters. Whitehorn has received $3,500 worth of office space to house his campaign headquarters.
The latest for the period from Oct. 30 to Dec. 18 showed $1,000 in contributions, $34,825.64 in expenditures and $15,826.55 cash on hand.
Whitehorn will take on Republican John Nickelson on March 23 in a runoff after the previous election in November 2023 was thrown out by a court after Nickelson sued.
The GOP candidate and former Shreveport city councilman cited irregularities with some of the ballots in an election decided for Whitehorn by one vote out of more than 43,000 cast. A recount by parish election officials came up with the same result.
A state appeals court agreed with the original decision by the lower court to order a new election and the state Supreme Court declined to intervene in the dispute.
Caddo Parish election officials say that the new election won’t cost taxpayers any extra funds as the runoff will coincide with the presidential primary election.
