Home Page > Democracy Toolkit > Dilution calculator

Sections

Introduction

Section 1: Getting started

Section 2: Accessing Census data

Section 3: Calculating the impact on districts

Section 4: Repairing your democracy, now and in the future

Tools

Correctional Facility Locator

Vote dilution calculator

Worksheets [DOC] with all of the tables used in this toolkit

Appendices

Handling lettered blocks

Determining whether prisoners were included or excluded from districts with known populations.

District population deviations & split prisons

Weighted Voting

Democracy Toolkit:
Vote Dilution Calculator

We have found that the most effective way to explain vote dilution is to show it in terms of groups of people being valued differently. This tool will help you translate percentages into examples.

Fill out the fields below for the district with the largest prison population and we'll suggest a simple way to explain the impact:

District information:

District number:

Percentage of the district that is
prisoners: %

Speaking engagements:

None scheduled. Invite Peter Wagner to come speak.

Stay informed

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and stay informed about the ongoing movement to change the U.S. Census' method of counting people in prison.

From the blog:

• Locked Up, But Still Counted: How Prison Populations Distort Democracy Sep. 5, 2008
• Census Bureau should use forms, not administrative records, to count people in prison Jun. 25, 2008
• Legislators ask Census Bureau to change prison count May. 28, 2008

Prisoners of the Census is a project of the Prison Policy Initiative. The primary author is Executive Director Peter Wagner (413) 527-1333 ISSN 1552-4418 RSS XML Feed
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