Giving Compass' Take:

• This story from the Prison Policy Initiative discusses a Washington bill which requires the state to count prisoners as residents of their hometown for voting purposes.

• If Governor Inslee signs this bill, how should it inform the strategies of political equality and criminal justice reform advocates? How might supporters of this measure affect similar changes in other states?

• Many low-income households find it difficult to afford legal counsel. To learn how Washington state plans to remedy this problem, click here.

[Recently], the Washington state legislature passed a bill ensuring that incarcerated persons will be counted as residents of their home addresses when new legislative districts are drawn in Washington. The bill is now awaiting Governor Jay Inslee’s signature.

[T]he Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the places where they are incarcerated. As a result, when Washington State uses Census counts to draw legislative districts, it unintentionally enhances the weight of a vote cast in districts that contain prisons at the expense of all other districts in the state.

Washington State is poised to become the fifth state to correct this problem by adjusting Census data to count incarcerated persons at their home address, joining New York, Maryland, Delaware, and California. Nine other states have legislation pending in the current session.

Read the full article about prison gerrymandering at Prison Policy Initiative