The Census Bureau is shutting down its decennial census counting operations this week, after the Trump administration received an okay from the Supreme Court to end the survey’s data collection two weeks earlier than what the bureau had planned.
The online option for self-responding to the census will close at 11:59 p.m. Thursday in Hawaii’s time zone — or early Friday morning for most Americans. Other options for responding will end a few hours earlier, and the field operations for counting people who have not responded on their own will shut down by the end of the day on Thursday.
The administration had tried to cut four weeks off of the data collection period of the census, part of an accelerated plan announced in early August to wrap up the census in time to deliver President Trump its apportionment data by the end of the year. The data determines the number of House seats each state gets.
Trump’s move to speed up the count was challenged in court, and lower courts ordered that the counting should continue until Oct. 31., which is the date the bureau had initially set as part of a reworked calendar once the pandemic began scrambling its operations.
The Trump administration fought aggressively to cut the counting short, and on Tuesday obtained a Supreme Court order putting on hold the lower courts’ directives.
The effort to end data collection early prompted major concerns among civil rights advocates, the business community, statisticians and other stakeholders who depend on the census. The bureau’s own experts said repeatedly over the spring and summer that they needed additional time to finish the count. The Trump administration, including President Trump himself, initially supported the idea of giving the bureau several extra months. An undercount is most likely to affect minority communities, lower income people and those living in rural areas.
But just as concerning is what the administration has planned for the next phase in the survey’s process, during which the bureau processes the data and does all kinds of quality checks to assure the data’s accuracy. Usually the process is given about five months. But under the expedited plan unveiled in August, the bureau will be given around half that time. That shortcut poses “serious risk” to the data’s accuracy, according to a presentation the bureau gave Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in early August.
The Trump administration claims that it sought to speed up the count because Congress had failed to grant a four-month extension to the bureau’s statutory Dec. 31 apportionment deadline. However, the Trump administration backed off its efforts to secure that extension at the same time that the President announced an apportionment policy to exclude undocumented immigrants from that count.
Many census observers see a link between the White House’s extension reversal and the anti-immigrant policy, which is also being challenged in court. Had the four-month extensions for the count been granted, there is no guarantee Trump would still be in office to implement the policy, since under that extended timeline, apportionment would not happen until April.
Here is more information, via the Census Bureau’s website, on the bureau’s plans to end counting:
Internet self-response will be available across the nation through October 15, 2020 until 11:59 pm Hawaii Standard Time (HST), (6:00 am Eastern Daylight Time on October 16, 2020) Visit 2020Census.gov to respond today.
Phone response will be available for its regularly scheduled time on October 15, 2020. Click here for schedule and a list of numbers.
Paper responses must be postmarked by October 15, 2020.
Nonresponse Followup census takers will continue resolving nonresponding addresses through the end of the day on October 15, 2020.
I am at a loss to understand SCOTUS reasoning on this. WHY"?
Is it possible to have a do-over census once the Dems get back in control of the government because this census was so badly cocked up by the chaosmonger-in-chief and his henchmen on SCOTUS?
When Democrats take over, the first thing they should do is hold hearings about the Census, and get the professionals to explain how the short analysis time has caused issues with the apportionment numbers. Then, they should produce legislation to correct this, and have Biden sign it when he takes office. The Census count itself probably won’t be redone, but it can be adjusted with counts in areas that were skipped, especially if rumors of political appointees interfering in the count or telling people to make up numbers instead of getting an accurate count can be verified.
Republicans will howl and sue, but clear evidence of interference and errors should make it an easy case…and if the Republican Supreme Court rules against it then it will be time for Biden to say “we’re not going to allow the SC to force a faulty Census onto the people, that is wrong!”, followed by court reform and four more judges on the SC plus term limits.
This is the last gasp of a dying party desperate to hold onto power, nothing more, and it should be swept aside as such.
After eliminating the legislative filibuster to defang Moscow Mitch, the new Congress and President Biden need to order a complete census to replace this incomplete one.
This MalAdmistration has exposed the need for many new laws to make sure that no bunch of thieves can ever gain the power that McConnell and the GOP has had, and to ensure that there can never be a total con man elected to ANY office.
Interesting factoid: Going back through the historical record, the four Supreme Court Justices with the lowest percentage confirmation vote are Alito (58%), Gorsuch (55%), Thomas (52%) and Kavanaugh (51%). You have to go back to 1887 to break up the Four Horsemen of the Judicial Apocalypse. I expect Barrett to take her rightful place in the hall of infamy.