There are some reports up at Prisoners of the Census that outline how political clout in Nevada has been unfairly shifted from urban to rural areas. The problem lies in the US Census, which counts people in prison as residents of the town in which the prison is located. This approach results in some quirky statistics. Take Pershing County, for instance (one of the red ones in the northwest). At least 21% of their population, and 95% of their Black population, is incarcerated. What might seem like a diverse community on paper, isn’t at all in the free community. That’s because most of these prisoners come from urban areas such as Las Vegas and Reno, and not from the rural areas surrounding the prisons.

So how does this lead to political imbalance? Well, there’s something called the “one person, one vote” rule that is part of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The rule states that political districts should be drawn to contain around the same number of people (within 10%). So the political districts in Nevada were drawn with the US Census and these prisoners in mind. But since prisoners can’t vote and are unable to be active constituents in their district, those people that aren’t incarcerated have more say over state affairs than urban districts like that of Las Vegas. For example, in these inflated prison districts, congressional members have fewer people trying to get their attention in political affairs than in urban ones. And when funding and attention is distributed by district, an unfair proportion is being taken away from urban problem areas where more residents are incarcerated in rural prisons.

This is a ridiculous sitation that plagues many states, and could easily be remedied by modifying census techniques to count prisoners as residents of their hometown and not their prison town. Read this report or this press release for more information.

[The areas drawn in the map represent state counties, not political districts.]