Pa. ends ‘prison gerrymandering’ with closely divided committee vote

The commission in charge of redrawing Pennsylvania’s House and Senate maps has voted 3-2 to make a major change to the redistricting process: It will no longer count many state prisoners as residents of the districts where they’re incarcerated, but rather as residents of the districts where they originally lived.

Khalif Ali, who directs Pennsylvania’s chapter of government accountability nonprofit Common Cause, called the change “is an important step toward fully representative legislative districts in Pennsylvania” that has been “a long time coming.”