Delaware House passes bill to count incarcerated people at home

A bill just passed by the Delaware House will count, for redistricting purposes, incarcerated people at their actual home addresses, not where they happen to be incarcerated. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative explains:

The U.S. Census counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison location. Prison-based gerrymandering happens when state and local government bodies use Census counts to draw legislative districts, and they unintentionally enhance the weight of a vote cast in districts that contain prisons at the expense of of people residing in all other districts in the state.

Delaware joins New York, Rhode Island and Maryland as the latest state to begin taking legislative measures to eliminate prison-based gerrymandering.

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