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NEW: Last-minute changes to the #2020Census the Trump admin directed the Census Bureau to make not only end counting early, but also cut short critical processes to ensure an accurate count. One quality-checking effort has already been quietly scaled back. https://www.npr.org/2020/08/29/905846761/the-census-scales-back-a-critical-step-checking-its-own-work
2. After #2020Census counting is set to end on 9/30, the bureau has about 3 months to run quality checks on the info it's gathered. "If you want an accurate census, the quality checks are as important as the initial enumeration itself," fmr Census Bureau Dir. Ken Prewitt told me.
3. A growing number of former Census Bureau officials and other #2020Census advocates are raising the alarm that the shortened time for processing responses is likely to exacerbate undercounts of people of color, immigrants and other historically undercounted groups.
4. The Census Bureau says its goal for #2020Census is to count every person living in the U.S. "once, only once & in the right place."
COVID-19 has already made that especially hard to do because scores of people have scattered from where they were living on Census Day (4/1).
COVID-19 has already made that especially hard to do because scores of people have scattered from where they were living on Census Day (4/1).
5. Some #2020Census watchers are also worried about whether the bureau can verify all of the online responses it has been collecting without a 12-digit "Census ID" that's assigned to each known home address.
6. Cutting short the time left to correct errors heightens the risk that the #2020Census results will count some residents more than once and at the wrong location, which could result in unfair distributions of federal funding and political representation for the next 10 years.
7. In a charged political climate churning with anti-immigrant sentiment and government distrust, the curtailed #2020Census schedule could also leave the bureau with more gaping holes in information about unresponsive households than in past counts.
8. Known for valuing transparency, the Census Bureau has yet to put out any specifics about how it will, in the words of its current director, Steven Dillingham, "streamline" the processing of #2020Census responses to deliver the first set of results to President Trump by 12/31.
9. The #2020Census is hurtling into a fog of uncertainty in its final months as the bureau rushes to deliver numbers from which Trump says he wants to exclude unauthorized immigrants despite the 14th Amendment's requirement to include the "whole number of persons in each state."
10. Many #2020Census advocates are calling for the bureau to release more detailed indicators of the level of public cooperation door knockers are experiencing among households that have not yet participated in the count, many of whom do not trust the federal government.
11. The Census Bureau recently started releasing "total response rates" by state. It says it has "enumerated" 81% of housing units in the country as of Aug. 28. But that rate is not a clear indicator how much of the U.S. population has been counted so far. https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates/nrfu.html
12. Some of those "enumerated" housing units could have been verified by the Census Bureau's #2020Census workers as vacant or not actual home addresses.
Others may have been added to the head count through dubious information door knockers have collected from neighbors.
Others may have been added to the head count through dubious information door knockers have collected from neighbors.
13. Tim Olson, the Census Bureau's associate director for field operation, told me that in the coming days, the bureau is planning to release data "a little more detailed below the state level" on its website.
14. Getting more technical details on how exactly the Census Bureau's door knockers are counting households right now for the #2020Census could help put into focus exactly how precise this once-a-decade portrait of the U.S. population is.
15. The more the bureau relies on alternatives to self-reported info from households, the higher the risk of producing inaccurate #2020Census data about historically undercounted groups, including people of color, resulting in stats that show a US much whiter than it actually is.
16. All of this uncertainty is leading many #2020Census advocates to wonder what kind of data the Census Bureau is preparing to deliver to President Trump (via Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the bureau) by the end of this year — and to the states next year.
17. "The Bureau will most likely release numbers at the end of the census process," Thomas Louis, a former chief scientist at the Census Bureau, says. "But if the quality of those numbers is low, fair apportionment and redistricting will be compromised." https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7043999-National-Urban-League-Aug-25-2020-Declaration-of.html
18. This month, the Census Bureau rattled many #2020Census advocates when it quietly cut short its count review operation, which had helped identify more than 240K housing units & 6,500 group living quarters (e.g., nursing homes, prisons) that were missing from bureau's records.
19. Qian Cai of @UVACooperCenter was among the demographers preparing to do another review of the bureau's data files in September for the #2020Census count review operation: “We lined up the resources & the personnel ready to provide input. And all of sudden, that's canceled."
20. "A lot of those changes, without a very clear explanation or justification, make data users wonder, 'How much can I trust the census?' There's a big trust issue," says demographer Qian Cai of @uvademographics.
21. @arkansassdc demographer Diego Caraballo tells me he feels "a bit nervous" now that his team has lost an opportunity to review the Census Bureau's #2020Census files about Arkansas again for the now-shortened count review operation.
22. Thomas Louis, former chief scientist at Census Bureau, says “eliminating” #2020Census count review op will help bureau “achieve the December 31, 2020 deadline for delivery of apportionment data, but will do so at a considerable cost in the quality & credibility of that data.”
23. Worried about #2020Census, Katherine Wallman, fmr chief statistician of US, hasn’t found “an objective reason for rushing through, ending up with crummy data & destroying the trust in a system that depends almost entirely on the voluntary cooperation of the American public.”
24. "At this point, it will take an unprecedented level of transparency for this count to have the credibility it needs," says @denicewross of @NCoC about all of the changes to the #2020Census.
25. There are federal lawsuits — one in California led by the @NatUrbanLeague, another in Maryland filed by @MALDEF & @AAAJ_AAJC attorneys — trying to get the Trump administration to go back to the extended #2020Census schedule the Census Bureau developed in response to COVID-19.
26. Congress could also pass a law that extends legal reporting deadlines for #2020Census results, which could give Census Bureau more time to count & process responses. So far, Democrats in House & Senate have introduced legislation. As for Republicans... https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/895744449/republicans-signal-theyre-willing-to-cut-short-census-counting
27. Any court ruling or new law is running up against a ticking clock with 31 days left of counting for the #2020Census, according to Census Bureau’s current schedule. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of Northern California, who is hearing the @NatUrbanLeague-led lawsuit, is aware: https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1298748444132216832
