Rigging the election with prisons

[Leeea]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-redistricting-begins-states-tackle-the-issue-of-prison-gerrymandering/2021/09/28/917f9670-167a-11ec-ae9a-9c36751cf799_story.html

While inmates aren’t allowed to vote in 48 states, they count for the purposes of representation.

Continuing to count inmates where they are imprisoned, voting-rights advocates say, unfairly shifts political power from Black and Latino communities, which are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, to rural White communities, where many of the nation’s state and federal prisons are located. It is a practice that has become known as “prison gerrymandering.”

Researchers found that one rural district would lose 21,112 residents if inmates were counted in their home communities.

“This is very reminiscent of the Three-Fifths Compromise, of how black and brown bodies are still being used to this day in most places around the United States to advantage White votes and White political influence,”

Our elections have never been free or fair. The corruption runs deep, the republicans are the racist poison within.

 

[shortylickens]

I think we've pointed this out many times already but yeah, its yet another issue with the electoral college that dishonest candidates can exploit. Namely republicans. Texas is particularly bad. They have a relatively high number of minorities living in their state, but they also imprison and disproportionate number of them.

 

[MrSquished]

I did not know this and this is insane. A prison of 5000 people in a rural shithole district will count towards their representation but they can't vote? Holy that is so fucked up in so many ways batman.

 

[shortylickens]

I did not know this and this is insane. A prison of 5000 people in a rural shithole district will count towards their representation but they can't vote? Holy that is so fucked up in so many ways batman.

well, they are technically citizens, what happens to the country also happens to them. so yeah, they matter in the sense that they're alive and part of the population.
Same with children, they cannot vote, but they exist. My beef is that politicians never do anything to improve quality of life for prisoners or try things which might actually help them rehabilitate and join civilized society and stop repeating their mistakes. They just keep throwing more of them away every year.

 

[Leeea]

They just keep throwing more of them away every year.

The system rewards that, by giving them additional representation and political power for each person they imprison.

Why would a republican do anything different? It has been getting them "re-elected" since before any of us were born.

 

[Sunburn74]

well, they are technically citizens, what happens to the country also happens to them. so yeah, they matter in the sense that they're alive and part of the population.
Same with children, they cannot vote, but they exist. My beef is that politicians never do anything to improve quality of life for prisoners or try things which might actually help them rehabilitate and join civilized society and stop repeating their mistakes. They just keep throwing more of them away every year.

Hmm I mean isn't in part the point of the census and districting a way to ensure funds are allocated appropriately? I dunno if this is really a problem though clearly prisoners probably shouldn't be counted towards any estimation of the voting population.

I'd rather just see a federal law that immediately restores voting rights upon completion of a prison term for any crime.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Should do what Vermont and Maine do.

 

[zinfamous]

well, they are technically citizens, what happens to the country also happens to them. so yeah, they matter in the sense that they're alive and part of the population.
Same with children, they cannot vote, but they exist. My beef is that politicians never do anything to improve quality of life for prisoners or try things which might actually help them rehabilitate and join civilized society and stop repeating their mistakes. They just keep throwing more of them away every year.

yes, but the problem here actually being that they are shipped away from their actual community. to a shithole holler in Kentucky that is in no way representative of their actual community, and their bodies simply get counted as "points" for the inbred kentuckians, further unbalancing the ridiculous power of illiterate redneck districts.

It's not the same as just being citizens who happen to live in prison.

It's almost as if this is all intentional, no?

It's the same as Russia deporting citizens of occupied states, replacing them with peasant Russians against their choice, then coming around decades later and claiming "protection of ethnic people" as justification for illegal invasion.

Anyway, it's all just another part of the ongoing survival of various forms of slavery that exist to this day, because the south and the GOP refuse to surrender, 160 years later

 

[brycejones]

Why else would Alabama want to spend it's federal covid relief money on prisons?

 

[soulcougher73]

I did not know this and this is insane. A prison of 5000 people in a rural shithole district will count towards their representation but they can't vote? Holy that is so fucked up in so many ways batman.

Ditto. This is 100% messed up.

 

[nickqt]

I mean, why would it surprise anyone.

Y'all have heard of the 3/5ths Compromise?

In 1787, Jesus and George Washington both agreed to count slaves as 3/5ths of a person for purposes of representation. And we're still not talking about how women, a full 50% of the population, were used for representation up until 1920 without having the ability to vote nationwide.

Of course, even hinting at the above paragraphs makes me a critical race theory radical attempting to destroy the country using factual history and a blend of 5G internet and a COVID vaccine that will turn the vaccinated into sterile socialist transgendered illegal immigrants, but I digress.

 

[fskimospy]

I’ve always thought the idea that prisoners can’t vote to be wrong as arguably no one has their lives more affected by government policy.

What’s the worry, that prisoners are going to vote themselves out of prison? I would say if you have so many people in prison that this becomes a possibility then that’s a feature, not a bug.

 

[Greenman]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-redistricting-begins-states-tackle-the-issue-of-prison-gerrymandering/2021/09/28/917f9670-167a-11ec-ae9a-9c36751cf799_story.html

Our elections have never been free or fair. The corruption runs deep, the republicans are the racist poison within.

The question is where do you live. It's not where did you live, or where would you like to live. If you live in a prison then that's your address, it's where you reside.
Such a bazar thing to get worked up about.

 

[K1052]

The question is where do you live. It's not where did you live, or where would you like to live. If you live in a prison then that's your address, it's where you reside.
Such a bazar thing to get worked up about.

No. For example if you are convicted of a crime in say California but are a Nevada resident you are not suddenly a California resident because you are incarcerated in California.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I’ve always thought the idea that prisoners can’t vote to be wrong as arguably no one has their lives more affected by government policy.

What’s the worry, that prisoners are going to vote themselves out of prison? I would say if you have so many people in prison that this becomes a possibility then that’s a feature, not a bug.

While I agree that prisoners should be given a vote, I think the real worry is about how it would affect local politics. Take Huntsville, Tx for example. It is the home of Sam Houston University, as well as 5 major prisons, all within the city's limits. The city has a population (as of the 2020 census) of 35000 people, 10000 of which are prisoners. It also has the strange statistic that because all the prisons are for men there are 1.53 men for every woman in the town. Any politician wanting to win in that town would have to cater to the prisoners as their main voting constituency, leaving the people that work for the prison and the university with very little chance at representation.

 

[fskimospy]

While I agree that prisoners should be given a vote, I think the real worry is about how it would affect local politics. Take Huntsville, Tx for example. It is the home of Sam Houston University, as well as 5 major prisons, all within the city's limits. The city has a population (as of the 2020 census) of 35000 people, 10000 of which are prisoners. It also has the strange statistic that because all the prisons are for men there are 1.53 men for every woman in the town. Any politician wanting to win in that town would have to cater to the prisoners as their main voting constituency, leaving the people that work for the prison and the university with very little chance at representation.

I think a more realistic idea would be that they would retain the right to vote in their county/state of residence before incarceration. After all, those are the laws that landed them in the pokey.

This would be similar to how military members can continue to vote in their home and state of record even if stationed elsewhere.

 

[Vic]

Nice to see folks catching on to the real purpose of the war on drugs. Selective and frequently corrupt enforcement of draconian laws in order to transfer voter representation from urban areas to rural areas while providing govt jobs to those under-employed rural areas.

 

[Meghan54]

The question is where do you live. It's not where did you live, or where would you like to live. If you live in a prison then that's your address, it's where you reside.
Such a bazar thing to get worked up about.

So, what you’re implying is that all U.S. military personnel stationed overseas get to only vote where they currently live, as in Germany or S.Korea or Turkey, etc., etc. and cannot vote in any U. S. federal, state, or local election until they physically reside on U. S. soil.