4 states have Census count inmates of rural prisons where they lived when convicted; to what effect?

For a myriad of reasons, prisons are more often based in rural areas than in urban settings. And for another set of reasons, those inmates in those prisons have typically been counted by the Census Bureau at their incarceration addresses rather than their last known home addresses. Maybe that shouldn't matter much in elections, because most prisoners can't vote, but some urban lawmakers say it "gives rural areas with prisons more representation than they deserve," Maggie Clark reports for Stateline, the news service of the Pew Center on the States.

This is more relevant than ever since the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the right of states "to adjust census data for redistricting purposes, which could encourage more of them to change their count for the 2020 census," Clark notes. Maryland, New York, Delaware and California have passed laws since 2010 to count prisoners at their last known addresses.

Some wonder if the heavy administrative workload of reworking the system is worth the effort. Some insist that prisoner redistricting will have limited political effect. But others believe that the point is that people should be counted accurately. “Even marginal impact is justice to the individuals in question,” says Justin Levitt, a redistricting expert and associate professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “Much like every vote counts even when single votes rarely decide elections, every bit of representation counts even when people don’t feel the change in boundaries.” (Read more)