DSCC? DPEC? What in the world is on my Louisiana March 23 ballot?

Though many may still be recovering from last fall’s elections, it’s already time to cast another ballot in Louisiana. Believe it or not, early voting for the March 23 election has already begun.

This go-around, the race at the top of the ballot is least critical. We’ve known who the main presidential candidates would be for some time. It’s the smaller races — for offices rarely talked about — that are the ones to watch now.

Those races will help determine if the Louisiana Democratic Party starts putting up a fight against Republicans or if they continue their streak of getting steamrolled. But you wouldn’t know that looking at the ballot alone.

Instead, registered Democrats and Republicans will quickly run into some acronyms: DSCC and DPEC for Democrats, or RSCC and RPEC for Republicans. For the Republicans, most of these races are either a foregone conclusion or not particularly interesting, thanks to the party’s well-oiled political machine.

Democrats, on the other hand, are a mess internally. And this election will go a long way toward determining whether the party is ready to reform itself or content being broken for the foreseeable future.

So what exactly are you voting for? Here’s how to decipher the alphabet soup.

The Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) runs the Democratic Party at the state level. Their job is to help Democrats get elected across the state, and they're the ones who vote for party heads, such as the chair and vice chair, and the executive committee that guides party decision making.

The state committee has 210 seats, a “male seat” and a “female seat” from each state House district. Hundreds of races may sound overwhelming, but of them, you’ll only be voting in up to two.

If there aren’t two DSCC races on your ballot, that likely means that one or both races in your district were unopposed.

The chair and other leadership elections will take place about a month after Election DAY. That’s when we’ll know if Democratic Party Chair Katie Bernhardt, who many in the party have criticized following abysmal results for Democrats in the fall elections, will stay in power or if a statewide recruiting effort to replace her has succeeded.

The next race on your ballot will likely be for Democratic Parish Executive Committees (DPEC) members. They focus on building up the party in their parish, which includes endorsing state and local candidates and working with other local community groups.

Their election is a bit different than a standard election. On the ballot is a list of people, and you’ll have to choose a certain number of them to vote for. How many you are asked to choose depends on which district you’re in. It could be 5, 10, 14, you name it. You may be narrowing it down to half, or like in one Metairie district, you could be voting for 10 out of 11 candidates, essentially just voting against one candidate.

It’s also worth noting that some of the same people are running for spots on the state committee and their parish committee.

With so many names on the ballot, it can be hard to research all of them. Antigravity has created a thorough voter guide on the New Orleans races. Meanwhile Blue Reboot, a statewide group of more than DSCC candidates who have promised to vote for a new chair, has a list of their members, which include a number of first-time candidates, LGBTQ people and formerly incarcerated people of VOTE, a group that advocates for the reform of Louisiana’s criminal legal system.

U.S. Congress Member Troy Carter has also been texting his choices out, calling them “True Blue” candidates. Though a few of his picks are also Blue Reboot candidates, most are their opponents.

Early voting runs through Saturday, March 16, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. On Election Day March 23, polls are open from 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Only registered Democrats or Republicans can vote in their party’s presidential primary and leadership elections.

Find your polling location and sample ballot at geauxvote.com.