December 9, 2019
Gerrymandering Prisoners
Earlier this year, a federal court in Connecticut allowed the NAACP to proceed in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit to challenge a widely overlooked population impacted by gerrymandering: inmates. The plaintiffs in the case allege that prison gerrymandering — counting inmates in districts with prisons during the census instead of where that person last lived —particularly disenfranchises low-income and communities of color. If successful, this case could lay the groundwork for other fair maps advocates to challenge prison gerrymandering in the courts. What may seem like a small difference has sweeping consequences. States rely on census data to draw new legislative maps and allocate...