Counting the Incarcerated in the Census at their Last Known Address

With the official U.S. Census results delayed to later this fall due to the Pandemic, the General Assembly had enough time to pass a bill that will clarify where incarcerated persons should be counted as part of the census. Should they be counted as a resident of the district in which the prison is located? Or should they be counted at their last known address prior to going to prison?

Senate Bill 171 provides for the latter, rather than the former. Specifically, this Act does the following:

• Clarifies that this law applies to individuals incarcerated in a state correction facility in Delaware.
• Designates the Department of Elections as the state agency in charge of geocoding the last known residence of these incarcerated individuals.
• Requires the Department of Elections to make reasonable efforts to correct last known residence data that is not geocodable. If the Department is not able to geocode the last known address of an incarcerated individual, the Department shall establish the address of the incarcerated individual as the State correctional facility where the individual is incarcerated.

The Senate passed this bill 21-0 and the House passed it 40-0-1. It now goes to the Governor for his signature.

Senate Bill 171 Sponsors	Yes Votes	No Votes
Sokola, Townsend, Lockman, Pinkey, Hocker, Pettyjohn	Senate Passed 21-0. Brown Ennis Gay Hansen Lockman Mantzavinos Paradee Pinkney Poore S.McBride Sokola Sturgeon Townsend Walsh Bonini Hocker Lawson Lopez Pettyjohn Richardson Wilson	None
Schwartzkopf, Longhurst, Mitchell	House Passed 40-0-1. Baumbach Bennett Bentz Bolden Brady Bush Carson Chukwuocha Cooke Dorsey-Walker Griffith Heffernan K.Johnson K.Williams Kowalko Lambert Longhurst Lynn Matthews Minor-Brown Mitchell Morrison Osienski S.Moore Schwartzkopf Wilson-Anton Briggs King Collins D.Short Gray Hensley M.Smith Morris Postles Ramone Shupe Smyk Spiegelman Vanderwende Yearick	Dukes (Absent)
Current Status —	Sent to the Governor.