Bill > H5538

This bill requires the Department of Corrections to collect and maintain electronic records of the legal residences of incarcerated individuals, starting January 1, 2026, to ensure they are counted at their actual home addresses during redistricting, rather than at their place of incarceration. The department must annually report demographic data about incarcerated persons to the Division of Statewide Planning, including their last known street address, race, Hispanic/Latino origin, and age, while ensuring individual privacy by not including names. The bill mandates that for redistricting purposes, incarcerated individuals will be counted at their residential addresses, not within the geographic units of their correctional facilities. The Division of Statewide Planning must adjust population counts accordingly, ensuring that people are represented in their home districts and that those with unknown residences are allocated like other state residents with unspecified addresses. The bill also extends this data collection request to federal facilities within the state and requires the Secretary of State to publish annual reports analyzing the completeness of the collected data. Importantly, this data cannot be used for distributing state or federal aid, and the bill includes a severability clause to ensure that if any part of the law is found invalid, the rest remains in effect.

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