Tell the Census Bureau: Miscounting Prisoners Distorts Democracy

From Fair Districts PA (http://www.fairdistrictspa.com):

The US Census Bureau recently released proposed rules for the 2020 Census. Despite significant public input asking for change, the Bureau announced it would continue past practice of counting incarcerated persons as residents of prison locations rather than of their home communities.

According to Pennsylvania law:

“for the purpose of determining residence,

• an inmate in a penal institution is deemed to reside where the individual was last registered to vote before being confined in the penal institution; or
• If the inmate was not registered to vote prior to confinement, the individual is deemed to reside at the last known address before confinement; or
• A new residence established while confined (for example, if the inmate’s spouse establishes a new residence in which the inmate intends to reside upon his/her release from confinement).”

Counting inmates as residents of prisons and detention centers violates Pennsylvania law, which states: “A penal institution (including a halfway house) cannot be a residence address for registering to vote.”

It also violates the one person, one vote requirement of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment as was made clear this year by U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker in Calvin et al. v. Jefferson County and by U.S. District Judge Ronald Lagueux  in Davidson vs. City of Cranston.

Miscounting of urban prisoners in the rural districts where most PA prisons are located swells the population base of those districts. It enhances the political clout of politicians who have strong incentive to support prison expansion and to enact policies that ensure continued mass incarceration. The practice distorts our democratic process and undermines government of, by and for the people.

Please take time to learn more at  Fair Districts PA: Prison-Based Gerrymandering and at Prisoners of the Census.

Comments can be submitted online through a link on the Census Bureau’s proposal page.

Thank you for working toward fair districts for ALL Pennsylvanians.