BATON ROUGE, La. -- Voter turnout was less than expected in the latest election.

WWL-TV

Just under 30 percent of Louisiana's 2.9 million voters cast ballots in Saturday's election. That's short of Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's pre-election predictions of between 35 percent and 40 percent.

Iberville Parish registered the highest turnout anywhere in the state in Saturday's balloting, with more than half of its voters participating.

Dardenne had predicted high turnouts in East Baton Rouge, Caddo and Orleans parishes because of the array of attention-getting local races. He says East Baton Rouge Parish turnout topped 39 percent, but Caddo and Orleans fell far below his expectations.

The lowest voter participation of any parish was in Franklin Parish, were 9 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)