By Passing SB 494, We Can:

• Ensure fair representation for all Michiganders.
• Restore political power to neighborhoods affected by mass incarceration.
• Promote an accurate and just democratic process.

Take Action Now

Here’s how you can help:

 Contact Your State Representative.

Urge them to support and vote YES on SB 494.

Find Your State Representative.

 Share Your Voice.

Explain why fair representation matters to you and your community.

 Spread the Word.

Encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to take action, too.

Together, We Can Make a Difference.

Let’s ensure Michigan values every voice and leaves no community behind. Lawmakers need to know we’re watching—and we’re counting on them to do the right thing.

If you support SB 494, now is the time to make your voice heard.

Thank you for standing with us in this fight for justice and representation!

Learn more about prison gerrymandering on our website. For current details on the status of this and other bills, follow the MI-CEMI bill tracker.

Prison Gerrymandering is a critical issue of fairness and representation in Michigan. Across our state, incarcerated individuals are counted as residents of the districts where they are confined, rather than their home communities. This practice distorts our district maps, shifts resources unfairly, and dilutes the voices of communities most impacted by incarceration, including many Black and underserved populations.

Detroit in particular, one of Michigan’s most incarcerated cities, grapples with Prison Gerrymandering. Many Detroit residents are held far from home in prisons, where they’re counted as residents, not in their own communities. This practice distorts district maps and dilutes the voices of our Black population. By ending Prison Gerrymandering, we can ensure fair representation and empower our neighborhoods to reclaim their political power.

I urge you to support SB 494 and join us in building a Michigan that ensures our district maps accurately reflect all the voices and people of our state.

The post Prison Gerrymandering: Contact Your State Representative Today appeared first on Voting Access For All.

We’ve identified over 200 cities and counties that have taken action to avoid prison gerrymandering and some local governments that still continue to base representation on flawed Census Bureau data.

Aleks Kajstura at Prison Policy Initiative

The post Prison Policy Initiative: Local Governments and Prison Gerrymandering appeared first on Voting Access For All.

Voting Access For All Coalition is thrilled to share that SB494 will soon receive a hearing before the Committee on Elections & Ethics.

Michigan currently counts incarcerated people as residents of the places where prisons are located rather than in the communities where they would otherwise reside, where their families live, and where they overwhelmingly return upon release from incarceration.

Because of prison gerrymandering, our communities are not only robbed of fair representation, but of access to resources that they could benefit from. Proper representation in the legislature ensures fair allocation of funding for things that directly impact the quality of life in a community and supports things like hospitals, fire departments, schools, roads, and resources for job seekers. The resources that are needed are stripped away and communities find themselves in a continual struggle to survive. That’s the destructive impact of prison gerrymandering.

This bill would end that practice by requiring that the pre-incarceration address of incarcerated individuals in Michigan be reported when providing information for voting district population counts. 

We are circulating a sign-on letter and are asking for your support… Please sign-on and share widely with your community.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1E4wF7zwAG2XheuG5X6XFoxwTSlztM6JhmE9q6sJZsx8/edit?ts=6478dd0a

The post CALL TO ACTION. DEAR FRIENDS WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT appeared first on Voting Access For All.

THANK YOU FOR STANDING WITH US!!

Tuesday’s panel discussion, Prison Gerrymandering: How Stolen Political Power Harms Our Communities, was recorded. Once we’ve received the final recording it will be available for viewing on the Voting Access For All Coalition YouTube page.

This is such an important subject and we need your help to BRING AN END TO PRISON GERRYMANDERING IN MICHIGAN.

We are working to STRENGTHEN OUR COMMUNITIES and are asking that you send a message to your Representatives and State Senator urging them to support fair maps to ensure that our voices are heard and that everyone has access to resources that improve the quality of life in our communities. This cannot be achieved without bringing an end to Prison Gerrymandering. Please support our CALL TO ACTION and help spread the word by going to: https://votingaccessforall.org/end-gerrymandering-now/

We thank you for standing up for COMMUNITY!! EndPrisonGerrymandering #EndPGMI

#StrongerTogether

The post Support the call to end Prison Gerrymandering in Michigan appeared first on Voting Access For All.

The post Opinion: It’s time to end ‘prison gerrymandering’ in Michigan appeared first on Voting Access For All.

From Nomi “I want to thank everyone who made a public comment, testified or sent an email to the MICRC. Every commissioner stated that input from citizens via testimony and public comment heavily informed their decision. I have no doubt that the VAAC community had a major impact on the entire process. This was an amazing example of the power this community has.

The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) has voted and has adopted new maps! It is not surprising that the new maps have been met with mixed reviews. Lawsuits were filed almost immediately after the maps were adopted. Those suing the MICRC claim that there are not enough Voting Rights Acts districts (VRA’s) and that the criteria MICRC used to determine VRA’s was based on bad legal advice. At issue is what percent of non-White voters must be present to comprise a VRA.

This is the space where the interests of partisan fairness, and the desire to have more BIPOC representation, collide. Having BIPOC voters packed into fewer districts would likely have the effect of electing more BIPOC candidates during contested primary elections. However, unpacking BIPOC voters would result in electing more Democrats.

Many people also anticipate lawsuits to be filed from the opponents of Proposition 2 who never wanted the MICRC to be created in the first place.

It is anybody’s guess what the outcome of lawsuits will be, but I think most legal experts expect the maps to proceed as adopted by the MICRC. Incumbents and candidates are certainly proceeding under the assumption that these new maps are here to stay for the next decade.

The specifics of the partisan divide is impossible to predict. This will depend on a myriad of factors including: who relocates in order to run in a new district and how successful each party is at getting their supporters out to vote. So far, it appears that there will be several uncomfortable primaries on both sides of the aisle. There is no doubt that both sides will lose some of their beloved incumbents. The new Congressional map leaves 7 of the 14 incumbents living in a district with another incumbent. It also creates 2 districts where no incumbent currently lives. Michigan’s only Black Congressperson, Brenda Lawrence has already announced that she will not seek reelection. Rashida Tlaib has announced that she plans to move to the new 12^th district (where Lawrence lives.) This leaves the 13^th district with no incumbent. Several people have already filed and other are eyeing the seat. Democrats Haley Stevens and Andy Levin will now be facing off in a primary in the new 11^th District. On the west side, Republicans Bill Huizenga and Michigan’s current longest serving incumbent, Fred Upton now reside in the same district. Moderate Republican, Upton has not yet announced if he plans to run for reelection.

The state maps also leave several incumbents living in the same district. For example, three incumbent Senators now live in the same district. Senator Rosemary Bayer (D) has decided to relocate in order to avoid the three-way primary. She will be running in the W. Bloomfield/Sylvan Lake area. Senators Mallory McMorrow (D) and Marshall Bullock (D) are currently planning to face off in that primary.

On a personal note, I can say that these maps are not as good as I had hoped, but not as bad as I expected. I would have liked to see more partisan fairness and more VRA’s. Prison gerrymandering is not addressed in any of these maps. Most likely, the Congressional map will result in electing 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans The Republicans will probably retain control of Michigan’s state House. And Democrats are predicted to win a very slight majority in Michigan’s state Senate.  Of course, these are only speculations and it is impossible to know for sure.

-Nomi Joyrich, MUUSJN

The post VAAC Activism Impacts New District Maps appeared first on Voting Access For All.

As social scientists, Kramer and Remster created a model for estimating the impact of prison gerrymandering on legislative representation. This model was vigorously peer reviewed and published in a leading social science journal (Remster and Kramer 2018).

Kramer and Remster applied their model to two of the MICRC draft maps and presented the following findings to the commission. To read the full report, click here.

1. Unlike other states we have analyzed, because Michigan’s Commission did not pack people of color into urban districts, none of the districts grew large enough after our analyses to become legally too large. However, we are concerned that State House Districts 9 and 73 grow close to that cut off, within 1000 residents of the maximum size, using our conservative estimation strategy. District 9 is majority Black and District 73 has more residents of color than the state as a whole (34% compared to roughly 25%).
2. On the other hand, proposed House Districts 107 and 70 have such a large portion of their population incarcerated that they would be constitutionally too small were Michigan to reallocate incarcerated individuals to their home communities. Both 107 and 70 would be more than 1500 residents short of the district size cut-off if it weren’t for incarcerated persons. Moreover, these two proposed districts are disproportionately non-Hispanic white whereas incarcerated Michiganians are disproportionately Black and Latinx.
3. These impacts are not a simple urban/rural divide. Most rural districts do not contain prisons—only 15 House Districts and 10 Senate Districts have state prison facilities of any size—which means that most rural residents’ representation is negatively affected by counting incarcerated people where they are confined. In fact, most Michigan residents have less representation because of this policy whereas a small portion have more representation simply because they live near a prison.
4. Figure 1 shows that counting incarcerated people in correctional facilities boosts white representation across the board. Although only districts with prisons benefit, the average white Michigander lives in a house district that has 56 more residents than it would without prison gerrymandering. For senate districts, the average white resident has 30 more people.
5. Counting incarcerated people in correctional facilities harms Black representation in Michigan (see Figure 1). The average Black Michigander lives in a house district that has 316 fewer residents because of prison gerrymandering. Their senate district also has on average 712 fewer residents. Because incarcerated individuals, their families, friends, even their crime victims, typically congregate in the same neighborhood, legislators representing Black communities often have more constituents requesting support services compared to legislators representing white communities, especially those with a prison in their district. This policy punishes every single resident of a district that is heavily policed, regardless of whether they have ever been incarcerated. Combined with residential segregation, Black Michigan residents have less representation than white residents because of where incarcerated people are counted.

The post Prison Gerrymandering Experts Provide Testimony to the MICRC appeared first on Voting Access For All.