I have seen it claimed that in the US, elections are significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, in the sense that, while prisoners may not vote, they are counted as inhabitants of the county they are imprisoned in, so they increase representation of those who can vote nearby.

Locations of prisons tend to be rural and have very different demographics from the places where prisoners would otherwise be living.

Deciding to let prisoners vote needs to be followed up by a decision on whether to let them vote as if they returned to their former home, or in the location of the prison.

I think it's obviously where the prison is.

Their vote should be able to impact the conditions of the prison

The prisoners don't necessarily outnumber the locals outside, so I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that they will be able to.

But another way to look at it, is that by being counted as part of the population in the vicinity of the prison, it provides an incentive to have prisons and to incarcerate people, and it also reduces the representation of the places prisoners come from.

I mean you can't have it both ways. If a person is counted for apportionment in a particular place, that is the place they're "represented" and it must be the place their vote counts.

> If your elections could be significantly moved by the votes of prisoners, you live in a failed state.

The prisoners make up about 0.5% of the population of the US. That's bigger than the margins we saw in several swing states in the last few elections.