The NAACP and Yale Law announced Thursday a lawsuit against the state of Connecticut over how it tallies populations for representation in Hartford.

The suit is over a practice called "prison gerrymandering," which the NAACP says deprives people in inner cities like Bridgeport of proper representation by counting inmates where they're housed in prison instead of where they came from.

The NAACP says that gives rural white communities -- where many prisons are located -- undue electoral influence.

"The practice results in a shifting of voting power away from urban centers, such as Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, where a disproportionate number of the mostly African-American and Latino prison population resided prior to incarceration," says Brad Berry, an attorney for the NAACP.

Shifting voter populations back to the cities could result in more Democrats in the state Legislature.