A federal district judge has ruled “prison gerrymandering” in Jefferson County, Florida, to be unconstitutional.
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The practice of counting prison inmates (who cannot vote) as local residents when drawing district maps for elections dilutes the clout of voters in other districts without prisons. And, given the demographics of incarcerated populations are disproportionately heavy with people of color (especially blacks), these prison-gerrymandered districts appear on paper to have more minority voters than is actually the case. What that amounts to is a bleaching of the districts around the prison-gerrymandered ones, giving an edge to Republicans in those districts. here
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