The U.S. Census Bureau counts the state's 71,466 prisoners as "residents" of their cells upstate, inflating the populations of small towns such as Malone, Chateaugay and Dannemora, where the prisons are located.
But according to the state Department of Correctional Services, 60 percent, or 43,740, of the state's prisoners are from New York City. Because of the dramatic upstate-downstate divide between the political parties, this means prisoners' own – overwhelmingly Democratic – neighborhoods in NYC lose demographic heft while overwhelmingly Republican prison towns gain numbers. That's what matters here rather than votes cast, as the vast majority of prisoners in New York state are barred from voting.
It's not just an academic problem for data nerds, according to Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based nonpartisan research group that has taken the lead in pushing the census bureau to count prisoners at their last known address. That's because all those city people puffing up the populations of small towns in the north add up to an entire extra senate district, and help account for the generation-long Republican hold on the state senate.
"If you send 40,000 prisoners upstate, plus you draw each upstate district several thousands too small, that adds up to a district," Wagner said, referring to the fact that any state legislative district is legally permitted to be 5 percent larger or smaller than the average district population (which is 306,072 for the state senate.)
State Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D- Manhattan) hopes legislation he introduced Jan. 29 will change that. Bill S1934 would adjust the data lawmakers use to draw legislative districts in order to count prisoners where they are from, not where they are housed. If it gets support, the measure could shift the balance of population power back to New York City, and to the Democrats. Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan) introduced a partner bill in the lower house Feb. 5.
The bill has little hope of passing the Republican-controlled senate. Majority Leader Joseph Bruno was not available for comment as of press time. However, when the issue surfaced as a side note in a voting rights case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last May, Bruno was unmoved. His spokesman John McCardle saw no need to change the process.
“What we do with the lines and with reapportionment is based on the law, and this is what the law allows for. I don't want to equate students with prisoners, but we count both where they are,” McCardle told the New York Times.
But in the swiftly changing landscape of Gov. Spitzer’s Albany, the two-seat Republican majority may not last until the next general election in 2008.
It's not all about politics, Schneiderman said. He introduced the bill both in 2005 and 2006, when Republicans had a more comfortable majority in the senate. Counting incarcerated New York City residents in the upstate districts that contain the prisons adds voting power to those districts without representing the interests of the prisoners, he argues, and it dilutes the voting power of city districts. (Meanwhile just 3,058 prisoners are held in New York City, and all but 686 of them are from here.)
"We need to deal with this, not just as a political issue, but as a moral issue. The argument is that we really should be doing as good a job as we can so that we have an accurate count that doesn't dilute the voting power of poor people," says the senator. "Working in the legislature, we look at poor communities, like the one I represent in Washington Heights: people tend to have less resources for their schools, less resources for transportation, less access to health care. Our constituents are told to get into the political process and fight for change, and yet the same state actors dilute their vote."
