https://www.vox.com/2020/8/6/21354283/trump-census-2020-end-early-covid-19
By Nicole Narea Aug 6, 2020, 11:30am EDT
President Trump has fired another shot in his war on the 2020 census.
His administration announced earlier this week that it will conclude operations for the census a full month earlier than previously scheduled. With about four in 10 households yet to be counted, the move will likely lead to an undercount among historically hard-to-count populations, including people of color, immigrants, and those in rural areas.
The Census Bureau will now stop soliciting responses — by mail, online, or in-person when census takers go door to door — on September 30. The bureau had originally pushed back the deadline for collecting data from August 15 to October 31 on account of disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it moved up the date on the basis that it was necessary in order to meet its statutory December 31 deadline to provide census figures to Congress.
It’s likely Monday’s decision will mean that hard-to-count populations, which include renters, low-income people, and children under the age of 5, could be undercounted, eroding their political power and undercutting their federal funding over the next decade.
States currently draw congressional districts, determining the areas that each elected official represents based on the total population, including unauthorized immigrants. The current maps are due to be redrawn in 2021 after the results of the 2020 census come in, and the stakes are high: Each redistricting has a lasting influence on who is likely to win elections, which communities will be represented in Congress, and, ultimately, which laws will be passed. If states can’t complete their redistricting efforts ahead of upcoming elections, including the midterms in 2022, courts can intervene and draw temporary maps.
His administration announced earlier this week that it will conclude operations for the census a full month earlier than previously scheduled. With about four in 10 households yet to be counted, the move will likely lead to an undercount among historically hard-to-count populations, including people of color, immigrants, and those in rural areas.
The Census Bureau will now stop soliciting responses — by mail, online, or in-person when census takers go door to door — on September 30. The bureau had originally pushed back the deadline for collecting data from August 15 to October 31 on account of disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it moved up the date on the basis that it was necessary in order to meet its statutory December 31 deadline to provide census figures to Congress.
It’s likely Monday’s decision will mean that hard-to-count populations, which include renters, low-income people, and children under the age of 5, could be undercounted, eroding their political power and undercutting their federal funding over the next decade.
States currently draw congressional districts, determining the areas that each elected official represents based on the total population, including unauthorized immigrants. The current maps are due to be redrawn in 2021 after the results of the 2020 census come in, and the stakes are high: Each redistricting has a lasting influence on who is likely to win elections, which communities will be represented in Congress, and, ultimately, which laws will be passed. If states can’t complete their redistricting efforts ahead of upcoming elections, including the midterms in 2022, courts can intervene and draw temporary maps.
As of August 4, the national self-response rate is still lagging 3.5 percent behind the final 2010 self-response rate of 66.5 percent. And at this point in the process, it’s unlikely that significantly more people will self-respond to close that gap. That means the Census Bureau will have to do more door-knocking than in the previous census to ensure an accurate count, but the administration’s decision to cease operations in September will cut that process short.A day after the Census Bureau’s announcement, four former census directors urged in a statement to the Trump administration to delay the deadline to respond to the census until April 2021. They also called on Congress to assign an independent, apolitical institution to develop metrics for judging whether the final census numbers are reasonably accurate and, if not, determine the next necessary steps.
“Having helped to plan, execute or lead five decennial censuses serving nine Presidents of both parties, our expert opinion is that failing to extend the deadlines to April 30, 2021 will result in seriously incomplete enumerations in many areas across our country,” they said.Latino and immigrant advocates have called the decision to conclude census operations early a blatant attempt to suppress the voting power of their communities. About 62 percent of Latino registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, according to a January 2020 Pew Research survey.
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Latino and immigrant advocates have called the decision to conclude census operations early a blatant attempt to suppress the voting power of their communities. About 62 percent of Latino registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, according to a January 2020 Pew Research survey.
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Rural communities will also suffer from the shortened census time frame. Howard Fienberg, co-director of the Census Project, an organization that supports an accurate and inclusive census, said he’s particularly worried by the self-response rates for Oklahoma, where there is high variation at the county level: One county has an almost 70 percent response rate, while about half of the state’s counties are in the range of 30 to 50 percent.
New Mexico’s statewide self-response rates are similarly concerning at the county level. The statewide self-response rate is about 53 percent, but in more than half the counties, the response rate is less than 40 percent. The more than 491,000 households in the state that still need to be visited by a census taker are primarily in the most remote parts of the state, which take a long time to reach, Fienberg said.
“A shortened period of non-response follow-up and minimal time to effectively boost any more self-response is unlikely to make a big dent in those numbers,” he said.
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