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A Dilution of Democracy: Prison-Based Gerrymandering
A Dilution of Democracy: Prison-Based Gerrymandering
Ending prison-based gerrymandering will benefit urban and rural communities alike and help realize the ideal of one person, one vote that is core to American democracy.
February 9, 2010
By Brenda Wright Tova Andrea Wang
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Every ten years, we conduct a national census that endeavors to make an accurate count of every single resident of the country. But in a distortion of this process, under current practice the Census Bureau counts incarcerated persons not in the community of their legal residence, but where they are imprisoned. Because census data are used to allocate congressional seats and seats in state and local legislatures, jurisdictions with large prisons and prison populations become eligible for greater representation in government on the backs of people who have no voting rights in the prison community and are not considered legal residents of the prison district for any other purpose.

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Tags: Prisons and the Census

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