New York Times: A New Delay for Census Numbers Could Scramble Congressional Elections. “The delivery date for the 2020 census data used in redistricting, delayed first by the coronavirus pandemic and then by the Trump administration’s interference, now is so late that it threatens to scramble the 2022 elections, including races for Congress.”
Reuters: U.S. Census Bureau director resigns ahead of schedule. “The U.S. Census Bureau’s embattled director on Monday announced he is resigning nearly a year ahead of schedule and will retire on Wednesday, the day Democratic President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated, according to a letter on the bureau’s website.”
Politico: Census Bureau says Trump’s push to exclude undocumented is dead. “Outgoing President Donald Trump’s plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census totals used to apportion congressional seats is officially dead. The Census Bureau announced Saturday that data on apportionment — and a related calculation of the number of undocumented immigrants Trump has specifically requested — would not be released until after President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.”
New York Times: Census Officials Say They Can’t Meet Trump’s Deadline for Population Count. “In a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to strip unauthorized immigrants from census totals used for reapportionment, Census Bureau officials have concluded that they cannot produce the state population totals required to reallocate seats in the House of Representatives until after President Trump leaves office in January.”
Associated Press: Census takers say they were told to enter false information. “Two census takers told The Associated Press that their supervisors pressured them to enter false information into a computer system about homes they had not visited so they could close cases during the waning days of the once-a-decade national headcount. Maria Arce said her supervisor in Massachusetts offered step-by-step instructions in how to trick the system. She said she felt guilty about lying, but she did not want to disobey her supervisors, who kept repeating that they were under pressure from a regional office in New York to close cases.”
New York Times: Two Huge Questions Loom as 2020 Census Winds Down. “The most contentious census count in memory is nearing an end with questions remaining about the accuracy of its numbers and how they will be used in congressional reapportionment.”
NBC News: Supreme Court allows Trump administration to end census count early. “The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively allowed the government to stop the census count immediately, blocking a lower court order that would have required the Trump administration to continue gathering census information in the field until the end of October.”
Phys .org: American Statistical Association releases 2020 Census Quality Indicators, urges prompt action. “The American Statistical Association Board of Directors has endorsed the recommendations of the 2020 Census Quality Indicators report, written by a task force of census experts to shed light on the quality, accuracy, and coverage of the 2020 Census counts. The task force, co-chaired by former US Chief Statistician Nancy Potok and ASA President-elect Robert Santos, was formed in early September in response to concerns about 2020 Census data quality, including the lack of transparency and measures of quality traditionally provided by the US Census Bureau.”
The Hill: Judge begins contempt proceedings for Wilbur Ross over allegedly defying census order. “U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, appointed by former President Obama, initiated contempt of court proceedings during a Tuesday hearing, accusing the Department of Commerce of disobeying her previous order, Bloomberg News reported. She set a hearing for the proceedings for Friday.”
NBC News: Commerce Secretary Ross says 2020 census will end Oct. 5 despite court order. “U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross says the 2020 census will end Oct. 5, despite a federal judge’s ruling last week allowing the head count of every U.S. resident to continue through the end of October, according to a tweet posted on the Census Bureau’s website Monday. The tweet said the ability for people to self-respond to the census questionnaire and the door-knocking phase when census takers go to homes that haven’t yet responded is targeted to end Oct. 5.”
Route Fifty: Court Orders Census to Continue Counting People Past Trump Administration’s Sept. 30 Deadline. “The decision—issued in a federal court in California in response to a lawsuit brought by many nonprofit groups—marks a dramatic shakeup for the 2020 census just days before it was set to stop its enumeration. After the novel coronavirus pandemic forced the bureau to push back its original schedule, Census had planned to continue knocking on doors through October. The Trump administration later revised that timeframe, in a decision that came from outside the bureau, to expedite the delivery of apportionment data by a statutory deadline of Dec. 31, 2020. The judge stayed both the Sept. 30 and Dec. 31 deadlines.”
CNN: Constitution doesn’t require census to be accurate, Trump administration says. “The Trump administration argued on Friday against a challenge to its 2020 census plans by saying the Constitution requires a count but does not say it must be accurate. ‘It cannot be the case that accuracy in and of itself establishes some sort of — is established in the enumeration clause’ of the Constitution, Justice Department attorney Alexander Sverdlov told a federal judge in California.”
HuffPost: Senators Introduce Last-Minute, Bipartisan Bill To Prevent A Census Disaster. “Senators unveiled bipartisan legislation on Tuesday to give the Census Bureau more time to finish the 2020 census ― an eleventh-hour effort to prevent a potentially severe undercount of the U.S. population, particularly in Native, minority and rural communities.”
Route Fifty: ‘Perfect Storm’ Threatens ‘Major Institutional Defeat’ for the Census, Top Watchdog Says. “A confluence of factors are threatening a ‘major institutional defeat’ as the Census Bureau begins to wrap up its decennial count, according to a government watchdog, with the risks being exacerbated by the Trump administration’s compressed schedule to deliver results.”
HuffPost: ‘Devastating’: The Census Bureau Is About To Severely Undercount Tribes. “The U.S. Census Bureau unexpectedly announced it will end 2020 census field operations early, a decision that will disproportionately hurt Native American tribes that are already historically undercounted, hard to reach and rely on accurate census data for lifesaving federal dollars.”
