ACLUFL and Florida Justice Institute filed a lawsuit challenging "prison gerrymandering", a practice that includes non voting prisoners in a district's population, inflating the voting power of the districts voters. The incarcerated population at Jefferson Correctional Institution (JCI) constituted a full 37.73% of the people who make up County Commission District 3, and 43.2% of the voting age population in the district. As a result, every four actual residents of District 3 had as much political influence in county and school affairs as seven residents in any other district. The lawsuit argued that the apportionment plan violates the “one person, one vote” principle established by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Date filed

March 31, 2015

Status

Victory!