Voters in eastern Oregon, Salem and other largely rural areas with prisons have a greater say in the state House than other Oregonians because of how the state calculates where incarcerated Oregonians reside, according to a report released by advocates Wednesday.
The report from the Prison Gerrymandering Project of the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative argues that the state needs to adjust its redistricting process before the 2030 Census to count incarcerated people as living at their most recent address, not where they’re serving their sentences. People convicted of felonies in Oregon lose their voting rights until they’ve completed their sentences.
“This gives residents of state legislative districts that contain correctional facilities a particularly loud voice in government, allowing them to have an outsized influence on debates about child care and school funding, food stamps, expanding medical release for incarcerated people, and more, at the expense of nearly every other person in the state,” the report reads…