BATON ROUGE — After a lawsuit was filed Thursday challenging Louisiana leaders' decision to postpone the May 16 U.S. House primary elections, Attorney General Liz Murrill responded by defending the delay. 

Activist Eugene Collins and Lindsay Garcia, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House 5th Congressional District, filed the lawsuit, which alleges that changes so close to election day threaten to disenfranchise voters, especially those who cast mail-in ballots. Gov. Jeff Landry, Secretary of State Nancy Landry and Murrill are named in the suit. 

"The United States Supreme Court has spoken, and a three-judge federal court has already made clear that Louisiana cannot conduct congressional elections under its now-unconstitutional map. Louisiana is following the law," Murrill said in a statement on Friday. 

The lawsuit alleges that the immediate action to cancel the election was not ordered in the Supreme Court decision, and parties should have 25 days to request a rehearing. It says that 100,000 absentee ballots, which do not reflect the updated changes, have already been sent out.