Recent years have seen an increased focus on partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering. But there's another version of that Virginia is in the process of ending, prison gerrymandering.
Da'Quan Love at the Virginia NAACP says inmates should not be counted as non-voting residents of rural, mostly-white communities where they are incarcerated. "This practice of prison gerrymandering is reminiscent of the Three-Fifths Clause. For decades and years, folks have been trying to discount the counting of Black people in this commonwealth and in this country."
In 2020, the General Assembly changed the longstanding practice of counting people where they are incarcerated. That means the next set of maps will help family members of incarcerated people gain resources and representation.
Ryan Snow at the Voting Rights Project says the old way of counting inmates as residents of the district where they are imprisoned makes no sense. "By doing that, you're artificially inflating the political power of those rural communities where the facilities are held by counting thousands of people who can't vote while they're incarcerated. But also have no connection to the community, maybe never even set food there before they were brought there and held there."
The Supreme Court of Virginia is currently considering a challenge to the new law, which could upend the plan to end prison gerrymandering just as the Redistricting Commission is considering new maps.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
