BATON ROUGE -- On Saturday, two Republicans, William Burris and Blair Downing Edwards, will vie for the District 1 seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court.

The district is made up of the Northshore parishes like Livingston, Tangipahoa, St. Bernard, Washington, St. Tammany, and parts of Orleans Parish.

Normally, the winner of this primary would go on to face another party's candidate. However, that's not the case this year.

"There are no Democrats in this campaign, and no non-party candidates either. Whoever wins the primary on Saturday will effectively have been elected to the Supreme Court, even though he or she may or may not be able to take office until January," WBRZ Political Analyst James Hartman said.

The Louisiana Secretary of State's office says that because the District 1 spot is vacant, it would be up to the state Supreme Court to determine the start date once the election is finalized.

On top of that, since the May 16 election is a closed-party primary, only Republicans or voters who register as no-party can vote on these candidates. Additionally, no independents or no-party candidates are registered to run, and the deadline to do so has long passed.

The current maps took effect in 2024, following Governor Jeff Landry's signing of legislation that redrew the state's Supreme Court districts. One of the changes came to District One, which was that Livingston was moved into the district, while Jefferson Parish was out.

"Well, the redistricting of Supreme Court District 1 made it almost entirely a Northshore district. So in this case, you've got two Northshore-based judges, both Republicans, running against each other," Hartman said.

WBRZ asked the Louisiana Democratic Party's executive director, Dadrius Lanus, why they didn't field a candidate for District One.

"Well, it's not just cause no one is qualified, it's when you look at all of the demographics, when you look at all of the scopes, that you have to look at before you go into a race, you ask yourself, am I going to invest in a race that I know I have absolutely no chance of winning?" Lanus said.

Lanus was asked his thoughts on the district.

"It tells you again that they're gerrymandering their maps in a way that makes it more difficult for proper representation, not just for minority classes like African Americans, but also for Democrats, period. They're making it harder for us to be able to win these seats, and they're giving themselves an advantage," Lanus said.

Thursday, WBRZ will be sitting down with both Burris and Edwards to discuss the upcoming election.