Prisoners of the Census - The Wisconsin legislature is rushing through a redistricting plan so they can lock in the maps before the scheduled recall elections can change who has the power to draw district lines. In that rush, prison-based gerrymandering is poised to have an even greater impact on state, county and municipal districts than it did a decade ago.
The Census Bureau counts Wisconsin prisoners as if they were residents of the communities where they are incarcerated, even though they can't vote and remain legal residents of the places they lived prior to incarceration. Crediting thousands of people to other communities has staggering implications for Wisconsin's democracy, which uses the Census to apportion political power on the basis of equally-sized state and county legislative districts.
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