Any new technology process is bound to have problems when first implemented. Some are due to poor design and unexpected consequences. Most are due to inadequate testing. This is a big project with inadequate testing. Expect big problems. Probably worse than healthcare.gov and 737 Max.
Because census data is confidential, there is no way to audit the census to see if it is correct. There will clearly be overcounts where people who live in two states are counted in both locations. We need to make non financial information collected by the census public. In addition this will make it easier to identify people engaging in many forms of fraud including state tax evasion, auto insurance, welfare benefits. If you are counted as living in NYC, you should be registering your car here and paying NYC and State income taxes and your children should be enrolled in local schools. If you don't live in NYC, your children should no be attending our schools.
1
Classic Trump move, do something horrible like the citizen question to draw the eye then do something worse while be one is looking.
11
The Americans Society of Vad Yashem should have a heart-to heart with all the Stephen Millers who are behind this nefarious campaign: from concentration camps for refugees, complete with children deaths to the US Census form.
8
Thanks, Reagan, for beginning the undermining of government that we see playing out today.
20
Just count the people named Trump and all the Evangelical Americans. The rest of us can stand in line with the Simpsons and Griffins to watch the parade.
5
The article should be titled, "Why Democratic Experts...."
1
@Erik. Are there any Republican experts?
10
To everyone saying the scales are tipped for CA and NY, one person’s vote for president in these states counts LESS than in other states. Also consider the federal tax per person paid in these states is the HIGHEST. Fair? The welfare babies in the middle cry the loudest.
22
Relax ! I am sure the republican contractor who will be hired to implement the census knows exactly what they are doing !
23
Why is the citizenship question omitted from the census? It is perfectly legitimate ! Are we so terrified that Latinos will go on a rampage because their neighborhood will not benefit from funds assigned by population. Some 30 millions illegals will be greatly rewarded for trashing our laws. I have had it with law breakers being rewarded and tax payer citizens penalized. As a life long liberal democrat I will not be voting for any candidate who will give a free pass to illegals, even if it means voting for an ignoramus.
5
@JG Not what the Supreme Court says.
8
Legal residents aren't citizens or eligible to vote, should they not be counted for apportionment? Should hospitals in places like Miami be underfunded so they can't afford to care for all the people who live here, legal/illegal resident and citizen alike?
8
@Gwen
Including the citizenship question doesn't mean that legal residents aren't counted.
Can you name one G7 country that doesn't have the citizenship question on their census? No you can't, because literally every modern country has that question in the census, and by the way it's not optional to complete it.
3
If liberals were in power this article would never be printed
1
What?!
POTUS contradicts his own Justice Department, then defies SCOTUS, and it’s only being written about “because liberals aren’t in power”?
Please explain why you believe why this wouldn’t be front page news any other day.
15
Just another way of saying, kiss democracy and freedom goodbye now that we have Trump for our president. He's going to ask a question straight from the year 1936 about whether one is Aryan or not and then incorporate the results into a modern-day gerrymandering scheme. All so that he can remain President for Life. Don't believe me? Just watch what happens in January 2021 when he's scheduled to vacate the White House...
21
Don and Vlad must be ELATED at all this. The "system", any governmental system, is subject to distrust under ANY administration, let alone under THIS regime.
Every day it's something with this fascist. Divide, distract, alienate, foment distrust, build hostility....and in only just under 3 short years that feels like 3 decades. He's a Wraith, feeding on us all and aging us years by the minute.
Will we EVER recover?
C'MON KAMALA!!!
15
Well, I was looking for a high level report of exactly how the data from many disparate sources is translated into a number. I.e., data from Medicare and Medicaid? What is the algorithm/process? What are the other inputs?
More facts needed in exposing precisely how each person count, counts.
4
Eventually, some president is going to have to thoroughly inspect every voter registration in the state of California, where guesses of the numbers of votes cast by non-citizens top ten million.
Should all Californians get to vote in Mexico's federal elections since a huge share of Mexican citizens apparently get to vote in ours?
2
@The Observer... Guesses ? Why not round up ? Say ....25 million ?
3
There is no evidence of massive voter fraud — in any state — let alone what you are claiming.
It is true that there are people who were registered to vote in more than one state in 2016 (Jared Kushner, Steve Brannon, Tiffany Trump, for example) though no evidence they actually voted multiple times.
18
His Highness King Trump is gonna delay it. Probs totally ignore the Constitution and not even have one.
6
You would almost think that the experts believe the Trump Administration is incompetent.
8
@Gone Coastal
Did you voice similar concerns when the Obama White House openly seized control of the 2010 census from the federal department that had included the census operation under Republican presidents?
3
Trump probably ordered the chips to be made in China so that he could have a back door to change election results any way he sees fit. After all, he's "the fakePresident" and he can do anything - laws, morals, ethics don't apply. The UNITARY CRIMINAL.
7
Why not ask Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to help their American friends work this citizenship census question out?
7
Why this war against paper? Cryptocurrencies. E-readers. Voting machines.
There's a reason why paper has lasted as long as it has.
21
Watching the evening news on Wednesday, a headline is that the justice department has reversed course and now wants to put the citizenship question on the census forms. This administration does not know if it is on foot or horseback. Let us hope the census is run by non-partisan professionals.
Meanwhile, dig out your copy of the Shake Off The Demon album by Brewer & Shipley and listen to the song "One By One".
7
At this point the entire Bay Area and every tech evangelist in it could disappear into the Pacific and we'd be better off. A vulnerability to mischief has been apparent in every electronic application to important records for years: doctors, Target, Sony, ballots; the list goes on. At what point do we say, "Enough"? Any genealogist in this country knows that the census was accomplished to a satisfactory degree by field workers and paper for 200 years. Why does anyone believe the fools who now tell us it can only be done electronically?
12
It's not just about technology.
I hope the bureau is prepared for the door-to-door canvassers to be harassed by right wing operatives who will do anything they can to disrupt this constitutional requirement. It is going to happen. They should send them out in pairs. The right will also send out people claiming to be census takers and tell people that they shouldn't speak to anyone purporting to be one. Yeah, there's reason to worry.
9
Astute points.
Would you want to be a Census door-knocker next year?
Forget sending them out in pairs; uniformed marshals should accompany them.
5
So, we're to be counted online, by mail, by field agents, possibly by drones -- how very exciting! Sadly, I'm not in the habit of cooperating with illegitimate processes, so this is one little old lady who will take the option of not responding. Hope that works for you!
3
@Jennene Colky: Jennene, please respond to the census. It's important that you and all Coloradans, whether citizens or not, are counted so you can have the representation and federal benefits that you've earned. Failure to participate is like the 80,000 Nader voters in Florida who gave the election to Bush and indirectly caused the deaths of many Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Every vote counts, and so does every residents participation in the census.
16
Trump has a long history of being a terrible administrator, thats why so many of his business's have gone bankrupt. He only seems to make money licensing his name.
What could go wrong with a man in charge who rarely tells the truth, doesn't believe in climate science (let alone anything scientific), believes a Russian dictator over his own intelligence agencies and is now coopting a national celebration and turning it into a love fest about him.
15
I’ve heard conservatives in blue state are going to under report on purpose.
1
Just like votes from Red States; it will be hard to trust the counts done by GOP or any of it's so called unqualified operatives.
4
In a couple of places the article refers to 1970 and I am sure they mean 1790!
1
I'm of the opinion that the Supreme Court will be working overtime for several years to come deciding which of Trump's tantrums are constitutional and which are not.
3
Just look at what technology has done for our elections in the USA. What could possibly go wrong?
13
If the military can't keep the latest hypersonic missile design safe from the prying eyes of the Chinese, how are we to expect that census data won't be accessible.
For better or worse, I think that horse has left the barn.
7
Democrats got what they wanted, to undermine the legitimacy of the government and prevention of the census providing data to enforce voting laws.
Although the citizenship question should have been included, not including it takes a quiver out of the Democrats legal weapons when they try to argue that blue states have been undercounted and they are therefore entitled to more stuff.
2
Tennessee is one of the state’s that takes rather than gives. Meaning states like mine are subsidizing states like yours.
I wouldn’t be so critical of the blue states that fund your state, I guess.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/
5
@Melissa
You might want to take an objective look at the facts rather than relying on fake accounting. When Tennessee residents pay a dollar in federal fuel excise taxes, we get $0.80 back. NY gets $1.20. Nationwide, the states pay for 70% of road and bridge infrastructure with the federal fuel excise taxes collecting sufficient revenue to cover an additional 25% and the general federal taxpayer covers the remaining 5%.
Please explain why Tennessee taxpayers cover 90% of our road and bridge infrastructure that is in good shape and NYS covers 60% of its own roads and is outraged that the federal government is not ponying up the 50% Obama promised for Amtrak tunnels between NY/NJ.
How much of the big dig did red states contribute to your local infrastructure?
The logic of wallet hub appeals to Democrats living in high tax states, because they prefer to believe they are paying high taxes because they are donating to the poor people in other states and not that their elected officials are so incompetent and corrupt that it cost four times as much to build your infrastructure.
You are impressed with the fact that you spend $18,000 per student for public schools and scoff at the poor Tennesseans who are too poor to spend more than $8,000. {Note, those are local and state taxes, not federal.} You are oblivious tot eh fact that the teachers you are paying $120,000 cannot afford housing and the teachers we are paying $45,000 own their own homes.
2
That is downright ridiculous. If you cannot ask such a basic and useful question, what can you ask then? There is a bigger issue of equal voting rights for US citizens here. Census results are used for setting electoral districts, such that every elected congressperson represents approximately equal number of voters. For that to happen one has to count eligible voters, and that would be US citizens. Non-citizens have no voting rights and are not entitled to congressional representation. If the census only counts residents, then the districts with large numbers of non-citizens would have congresspeople representing fewer citizens. That would be unfair to citizens living in other districts. One could argue that it violates US Constitution.
4
@David: David: It is difficult to enumerate all of the errors in your post. Let me just do a few. Representation in the House of Representatives is based on population, not eligible voters. That's why EVERYONE is counted, citizen or non-citizen, eligible voter or non-eligible voter alike. If you paid attention in your American History course in high school you would recall that under the Constitution even slaves were counted as 2/3rds of a person so that the southern states could up their ante in the Congress. That was OK then, but the good ole boys now don't want non-citizens counted. I think they'd actually prefer to return to the good ole days when black folks only counted as 2/3rds of a person for congressional representation but had no vote.
5
@JerseyFresh That is rather disingenous to use outdated arrangements under long abolished slavery as an argument for counting non-citizens in apportioning congressional districts. Maybe we should count non-citizens as 2/3rds of a person then? But that would again require the citizenship question added to the census. Perhaps, counting non-citizens did not matter much when their numbers were low, since the districts' populations were only approximately equal anyhow. But now with some districts being up to a third populated by non-citizens it starts to affect voting rights equality. I repeat, non-citizens do not have any voting rights and are not entitled to any representation. That is just a fact. Those who want to change the law and let non-citizens vote for Congress and President should just mobilise support for doing that, not try to sneakily deprive US citizens of their voting rights.
3
@JerseyFresh
You are absolutely correct that the constitution says each state is allocated House members in proportion to the population of residents, not citizens in the state. There is nothing in the constitution that states that each congressional district should contain the same number of residents.
Your description of the 2/3 compromise is backwards. The northern states [which had small slave populations] wanted to count all of their non citizen residents except slaves. They wanted to prevent the southern states from being able to count their large number of non citizen slaves. The north demanded that the south discount their slave populations to diminish the number of House seats it would get.
1
I think, over $100 per person per count is way too expensive. I also think that it maybe too hard to control computerized records.
Why not use the voting machines to count people or families. There should be a 10 day period to show up, show ID and cast a vote typing in the number of people residing in the family
Yes it’s inconvenient, but saves money, makes it secure. Surely you want your district to be represented by the right number of people
2
The census counts everyone, not just registered voters -- or people eligible to vote.
More here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census
4
I don’t trust this administration to do the “right” thing at all. This will turn into massive non-participation. And, as I live in Texas and my state government officials are equally horrible, I fail to see a good reason to cooperate.
3
I went to dinner recently, and the waitress had a hand-held device to take our order. I'm pretty sure she couldn't get email on it. Why on earth give people a cell phone that can be hacked?
4
All over the World the lights are going out in Census Offices. There is now no need for a six. seven, or ten year count. This information is collected by the minute, by all sorts of authorities, Driver's Licence details, information complied by local authorities, in those countries with universal healthcare through the Health Service or insurers, information gleaned from public transport cards, the list is endless.
Many countries have abandoned the census altogether. In Australia the only requirement for a census is to determine the boundaries of electorates in the Commonwealth Parliament. After the fiasco of the E-Census in 2016, it's most unlikely that another census will occur in 2023.
4
@Patrick QUILL
A constitutional amendment would be required to abolish the census
@Patrick QUILL
We reset the apportionment every ten years in a country that has ten times the population of Australia.
Would things truly improve in America if we reapportioned every day? Once every ten years is good enough for government work.
1
The outcome, unfortunately, is that the census will be inaccurate.
3
@A
It will be inaccurate as it has been every time the census has been conducted. The question is will it be directionally correct, which is all that is necessary.
For Democrats, anything that delegitimizes the government is good news to them.
The census is terrifying and I’m not going to sugar coat any of it, but please remember to also highlight the reasons that we - as residents and not citizens- need to complete our census forms and how to do it safely.
1. Results of the census are the sole determinants representation and (often) funding. In CA alone, for every person missed, the state loses $2k per year. And in 2010, they held onto their congressional seat by a margin of 18 people. If they hadn’t counted those last 18 people, CA would have lost a seat.
2. Businesses use the census to decide where to invest money in factories, stores, jobs, etc.
3. If you fill out your census form, the feds can no longer pretend that you do not exist, and therefore cannot deny you funding that your community is entitled to.
4. If you fill out your census online, you won’t have enumerators knocking on your door.
5. Title 13 protects your information so that it cannot be used for anything other than statistical purposes.
When you fill out your census form, use a SECURE internet connection (don’t go to a coffee shop or a library or LTE. Use someone’s personal connection.
19
@Annie Carroll: Thoughtful and pragmatic advice...thanks!
5
As regards #5 The census information was used in ww2 to round up Japanese Americans.
@Annie Carroll
We've seen this government's disdain for the law. Title 13 is irrelevant in the government of Trumpistan. You cannot prove this information will not be used for illicit purposes to benefit the Republican party.
3
I’m only speaking for myself here but in my opinion the reactionary rights attempts to undermine and delegitimize the census is an act of subversion. This is where a significant part of the Republican Party has gone in its attempt at one party domination under Trump. It is a deliberate perversion of representative democracy akin to other authoritarian governments in Europe and Russia. Putin’s puppet serves his mentor well.
29
@John Chastain
No one would have been frightened by the inclusion of the question except for leftist conspiracy theorists. They fulfilled their objective and are going to contend, even without the question, for the next ten years that they was robbed.
You have conveniently forgotten that in 2016, Jill Stein demanded a recount as Hillary's surrogate. The recount was rapidly suspended when Trump's margin increased. Hmm. Democrats cheated but not enough to overcome the will of the people.
Who are the subversives? The Russians, who have convinced you Republicans are evil. That makes it impossible for there to be a reasoned debate.
We have not seen any evidence that Bush spied on the Obama campaign, despite the fact that Hillary's buddy, Blumenthal was advancing the birther conspiracy. We have seen evidence that the Obama administration spied on Trump to advantage Hillary and that the Russians provided opposition research to Hillary. It is alleged that they offered to provide opposition research to Trump, but no actual evidence that any was provided.
And you see Republicans as the threat to democracy. Perhaps it was a mistake for Hillary to promise to put workers in the coal industry out of work. The workers in energy intensive industries were smart enough to recognize she intended to also send their jobs to third world countries like China to be powered by coal sans emission controls.
3
Republican equals criminal.
1
If I was a gambling woman I'd bet that Putin already has those access credentials and is already busy at work. And, of course we can't afford the means needed to secure the census because, you know, there's a great big beautiful parade to put on.
13
Sorry before continuing what does “Access credentials for an account with virtually unlimited privileges had been lost...” even mean? From an application perspective there are so many way to limit access per ID per user?
You talk about scaling back resting? What is the effort of testing required in man hours? What is the associated cost? What is the definition of optimal testing? There are so many ways to avoid DNS attacks so please explain..?
Further down you say that the issue with testing has been solved?
“The heated political discourse about the citizenship question has supplied ample fuel, and researchers say they are already beginning to see coordinated online efforts to undermine public trust in the census and to sow chaos and confusion” - I think is is done/dead/kaput with the decision to not include citizenship question. What coordinated efforts are you seeing that will undermine public trust? Evidence please..
Good lord at the quality of journalism. Appalled
5
As a system admin who uses AWS extensively this has to mean they lost the credentials for the master user account login. AWS warns you everytime you log in to delete those keys once the account is set up because if you lose them it can be devastating. Can only mean that some idiot is in charge of the system.
1
Thank you! Was trying to address the vague language, lack of proper understanding and logic flow in the article above.
@mons
That idiot is a holdover from the Obama administration. It's not like the operating people were replaced with the new administration. Only the political appointees are replaced.
Well first we have the Liar in Chief telling the nation that he will not obey a ruling from the US Supreme Court that he helped pack with conservative judges. Now we have new technology that will inevitably have glitches. I also wonder if anyone in DC realizes how poor cell phone reception is in rural areas--not sure if that will also produce unintended problems.
8
@stefanie
If you have a smart phone, it can store information if it cannot access the system.
Yeah, the census will be inaccurate now that it will not contain the all important citizen question. Thank you.
4
@Southern Boy think about it. Don't just react.
1
I’m 59 and have no memory of ever filling out a census questionnaire.
4
@Shamrock
I’m 70 and have no recollection either.
Those of us who grew up during the Cold War will remember how the Soviet Union was hyped as our bogeyman all the livelong day,.
There was red baiting, there was an arms race, folks built bomb shelters, we put our military budget on steroids. We had drills in school that taught us to shelter under the windows when the inevitable Russki atom bomb would come tumbling down, because at least then we were told we wouldn't be harmed by flying glass. (I am not kidding.)
Now that an old cold warrior in the person of Putin is in charge of the resurrected Russia, we Americans will now be induced by its disinformation into the paranoia of not being able to believe in our institutions any more. (Of course, this is aided and abetted by Donald Trump, who isn't a master of disinformation like Putin, he just practices shameless, flagrant lying.) We are once again the pawn of Russia, its plaything, and Russia no longer needs nukes to make us quake under our beds.
Just legions of hackers, of cyber warriors who will infiltrate every on line portal from Facebook to the bowels of government We are so poorly defended. As you all know, Trump with his display of tanks on the Mall still thinks we are powerful because we have hardware, missiles, nukes and the like.
But the Russians have software. When Americans can no longer trust edicts or press releases or videos, the rule of facts and figures will be over. And we will turn on ourselves. And Putin will be smirking--as he so knows how.
13
@Thoughtful Woman
When Romney was running for president in 2012, he responded to a question about the greatest immediate threat to America in a debate with Obama and Obama laughed in his face, since obviously, income inequality or some other social welfare construct was a greater threat. This was after the Obama/Hillary "reset" and Obama's promise to Putin that Obama would have more "flexibility" after his re-election. It was also after Putin had invaded Georgia in an effort to advance Russian leaning forces to bring the independent Georgia back into the old USSR.
Your depiction of history is interesting. We went from the evil USSR and fear that you describe as of a bogeyman. [The "duck and cover" days.] The USSR collapsed under its Socialism and the arms race of Reagan [star wars for America and allies] and the countries it had occupied when evil broke free.
Over the next 20 years Russia established itself as an oligarch, growing its economy to 11-15% of the US, a shadow of its former superpower strength. Under Bush, Russia pretended to be an ally of the industrialized world in opposition to terrorism. Western investment [bipartisan from the US] helped the Russian economy to expand to 20% of the US.
Under Obama, we became buddy-buddy despite Russian support of our enemy, Iran, funding of terrorism, invasion of Georgia, Ukraine to reestablish its power. You blame Trump.
2
Thank you for your excellent analysis.
1
The only certainty is that the Republicans, the Russians and probably the Saudis, Emiratis and Israelis will be crawling all over it electronically, doing all they can to help Trump.
10
Plus, with Trump in the White House, we can’t trust this government.
9
If you saw how the current state paper process actually works for these things you’d not make it sound as if *only* digital solutions are risky.
Love,
A government consultant
3
Considering what happened in the 2016 election, it's not safe to rely on the internet for the census count.
Sometimes the simple, original way is the best. Paper and people will protect the integrity of the census from hackers, both foreign and domestic.
9
There had to be a reason the administration gave up so easily. I guess this is it - a toss up between foreign (or domestic) hackers or "undercover" Census workers. Who can we trust?
3
I’ll take the stock market rising that pays for my pension over a super accurate census.
The accuracy of every decennial census in recent times has been successfully challenged in court by states who claim they're being short-changed in tax rebates ("apportionments"). That's inarguable proof that modern demographical methodology is much more accurate than the Domesday methodology of 1787. Why shouldn't the modern methodologies be what Congress "by Law direct(s)," as per Art I, Sec 2 (3) of the Constitution?
2
@DMH
Back in 1787, only property owners paid taxes or were eligible to vote. The census determined how many residents there which determined how many seats each state would get in the House of representatives and also how much cash each state would have to contribute to the federal government.
With whatever limitations to technology, the taxpaying voters had to balance their desire for more House members to the extent they got a high count with their desire for low taxes if they had a low count.
Once the constitution was amended to replace income taxes with per capita payments from the states, the balancing forces vanished. It is unlikely that the count was ever perfect, but the forces pushing it up or down tended to make it directionally correct.
Before the income tax, federal spending was somewhat constrained, because a House or Senate member voting to spend money on anything had to go home and tell the state legislature they had to come up with an additional $10 per state resident to pay their share of the bill.
Once the accountability link was broken, spending exploded.
1
$16 1970 is the same as $105.62 in 2019 when you factor in inflation. So at $95 today we are actually doing it at more cost effective rate than 1970.
8
As the article states, the $16 and $92 are already adjusted for inflation. So costs have indeed risen a lot.
4
@Still Waiting for a NBA Title it's the average cost in 2020 dollars. Already adjusted for inflation.
1
@Still Waiting for a NBA Title "The average cost, in 2020 dollars, to count one housing unit increased from about $16 in 1970 to about $92 in 2010"
"in 2020 dollars"
The controversy surrounding the Citizenship question in the 2020 census serves only one purpose, one that has been reached already: instill a degree of suspicion about voters integrity in the 2020 election if the current occupant of the White House loses it.
As such, he really doesn't really need to include it in the census. All he has to do is leave it hanging as an unresolved threat to his campaign, one that will be a constant whining in political rallies and enough motivation for his followers to challenge individual voters and negative local results on election day.
When you need to bring out the tanks to celebrate a Fourth of July in a country at peace, adding doubt to a proven process is minor.
13
@Pablito
Under the worst case Democrat prediction, the undercount with the question v. without the question was one to two million. Even if all of the undercount was in California, it could not have moved more than a single House seat.
Democrats did not fight the question because they feared even a minor shift of House seats.
Their primary motivation is to prevent Republicans in Democrat gerrymandered states from objecting to the fact that they live in a Congressional district that contains exactly the same number of residents as another Congressional district in their state. But their district has twice as many adults eligible to vote [adult citizens over the age of 18] and so get less political representation than eligible voters in the other district.
That Democrats have cast aspersions on Republicans and the legitimacy of the census and government in general is a side benefit. Democrats are going to sue that they aren't getting a fair shake from the census either way.
"...the American population is fertile ground right now for conspiracy theories and manipulation.”
Sage words. Given the general tenor of our present national political discourse, we all need to prepare for the following scenario:
Trump is reelected. Putin's minions spread disinformation indicating that Russian-backed hackers manipulated the census to benefit Trump and the GOP with their knowledge. However, there is no direct evidence. The purported evidence mostly takes the form of mid-level GOP figures having held meetings with shady people who are now revealed to have connections to Russian hackers.
Trump will circle the wagons, clumsily insult his critics, and order his staff not to say anything; this is now predictable as the sunrise.
The investigation is essentially Mueller redux. There is scant evidence of actual Russian interference, but plentiful evidence of Trump trying to muzzle anyone who might say something bad about him.
Pelosi decides she can't ignore her caucus any longer, the House launches impeachment proceedings, and the national government grinds to a standstill. Meanwhile, Russia invades/bankrolls/jails/steals [fill in the blank].
The really brilliant part of this scheme is that it's in the Russian's favor not to do any actual hacking. This ensures that the GOP can claim that Trump should be exonerated.
Just wait.
7
Don't forget the part where Trump will directly ask Putin if he was involved, and Putin will say now, and that's good enough for Trump. Never mind the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.
3
STOP wasting you time worrying about the census when it comes just throw it in the trash with all the other junk mail.
2
Then stop paying your taxes and voting as well; and driving on public roads and taking the bus.
6
With so many illegal/undocumented people living in this country is it sensible to apportion legislators by population and not citizenship?
5
The choice is not between citizen or undocumented immigrants. This country has millions of non-citizens living here legally, sometimes for decades.
Everyone living in this country is supposed to, and deserves, to be counted. Congress doesn't represent just citizens; it represents all people. Laws don't apply to just citizens; they apply to all. Same with taxes. (Remember "taxation without representation?")
19
@Marie Seton Legislative apportionment is based on population, not citizenship, according to the Constitution.
4
Anticipate the worse. The probabilities of a clean and honest census with the Trump administration in charge are very, very low.
24
I don’t trust this administration to conduct a fair census at all. I’m certain they will try to skew the numbers in republican’s favor for a decade to come. They are criminals.
14
For some reason(s), I was left thinking 'I have no confidence these people know what they're doing, the odds are high this is going to be a disaster.'
9
We desperately need to be on the alert for Putin meddling in our elections nation-wide. When Trump meets with Putin and tells the world it's none of our business, you know something bad is up. What about Fox News and Putin in tandem? Something wrong there.
7
Bottom line: American business is "allergic to issues...especially if they have any kind of racial controversy." Unpacked: too many customers are racist for us to promote the Census.
Can we boycott business that loves racists? If it doesn't promote the Census?
"And then there is the risk of a cyberattack."
Russia, if you're reading this ...
3
The Trump administration will be the one to hack the census information and change it to their liking. They don't follow any laws so why wouldn't they do what they want with the information. Trump and his administration of grifters appear to be above the law with no one holding them accountable.
10
Despite the withdrawal of the citizenship question, its mere possibility for over a year has likely already served its purpose. I would be very surprised if Hispanics who don't have deep roots in this country haven't been scared off now.
What's needed at this point is a concerted campaign to promote the participation of this section of the population.
7
@Sixofone
Why would a Hispanic with a green card or valid longstay visa be "scared off"?
3
@kwb
If you knew Hispanic residents who are rotinely harassed because of ethnicity you mightmight understand . Happens to my citizen nephews a lot
If the purpose of the citizenship question weren't known, there would be arguments for and against including the question. However, Trump now says he's going to defy the Supreme Court. He can't do that. I've been trusting Nancy Pelosi on impeachment, but if there is a red line you don't cross, this is it. When Trump defies the court that he packed illegitimately with his own people (thanks again, Mitch McConnell), that is surely impeachable.
8
@C Wolfe
I think last night Trump or the justice department said the census would go forward without the citizenship question. But this article makes me think they may have other means of getting the results they want.
7
Bluebird: I also heard this morning that he directed both Justice and Commerce to find a way to add it. Not sure what he means, although he usually doesn't know either. Regardless, it doesn't make me feel confident.
I see a good possibility that blue states either hold current representation or maybe add one or two, and he screams that the process was hacked and is not valid. Dry run for when he loses the election and refuses to leave, claiming the results were fake.
4
@BlueBird
That was last night, BlueBird. See:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/us/politics/census-citizenship-question.html
In rural areas all over the country, there is simply no cell service. How are the smart phones of census workers in those areas supposed to work?
We should not be relying on vulnerable software for either the census or our elections.
12
Do not trust the Trump administration with the census, they have zero credibility and they would allow Putin’s hackers to skew the Census!
There should be an independent census done by a watch group.
6
After filling out online all my info some months ago -- which I found intrusive -- I received a new notice for more info today. I was unable to logon and after three tries gave up.
4
I do NOT trust my government with anything having to do with technology or counting people. Forget about hacking from outside; its the inside I'm worried about.
5
Why worry now? Trump has given in on his demand on the citizenship question. So what's the problem?
2
Whereas the Obama Administration worked diligently, allocted the funds and resources, to make sure the count was as comprehensive and accurate as ever, I am willing to bet the Trump Administration will do its level best to overcount in areas to get political advantage, and undercount in areas they want to literally discount. I wouldn't trust this administration to do anything accurate - that's why Trump doesn't have to prosecute the citizenship question further. They decided there are other ways to get the result they want. Perhaps a whispering campaign that the government will be using the information to keep track of people, even though that is illegal (when does "illegal" ever bother Trump or his henchmen).
5
Since it wasn't broke(n), they shouldn't have tried to fix it. Paper has worked just fine for 100 years. And as with digital voting machines, there needs to be a literal paper trail/back-up for the data collection -- using both methods could curb the chance or effectiveness of data tampering or loss.
11
Owners of tech companies lobbied hard to push for new, hi-tech vote tallying methods. Completely unnecessary and counterproductive for society at large, yes, but quite a lucrative change for them. After all, they didn't own paper mills (and the profit margins are pretty slim for paper and pencil manufacturers, anyway).
4
Seems like a task that blockchain technology might be able to help us with. I'm no expert, but from what I understand it's a decentralized mechanism for mathematically ensuring trust through a distributed ledger--one that cannot easily be hacked (if at all).
3
I've worked for the Census in the past. In order to be selected in my area of NYS in 2010, one had to achieve a near perfect score on the test given.
I've been told no test will be required for the 2020 Census. How are they going to screen for qualified applicants? Is this another cost saving measure that will undermine the quality of field workers?
17
It's not so much the "quality" as the "intent."
1
One of the reasons that the 2010 census was so expensive was the last-minute realization that the hand-held computer designed for the job was inadequate. This lead to the printing of large numbers of maps and questionnaires, and the need for couriers driving hundreds of miles a day.
Funding for the census was reduced prior to the 2010 census, which was part of the reason that the problems with the hand-held computer were not discovered until summer of 2009. Continuing resolutions maintain funding at current levels, but the census needs funding to increase during the 3 or 4 years prior to the actual census, which did not happen last time.
Technology should be proven at least 2 years prior to the census, to avoid last minute discoveries of problems. Funding should be allocated separately from regular budgets, so that it is not imperiled by disputes in Congress. The amount of information requested during the census should be kept to a minimum, focusing on the counting of the population. There is an ongoing census survey which seeks the more complex information of race, occupation, education level, etc.
5
@Scott Holman I supervised 10 crews and over 150 enumerators and we only used the handheld computers during the mapping phase, so your comment is inaccurate. The door to door followup was done with old-style hand written forms. Everyone talks about how inaccurate the 2020 Census will be, but nobody has any idea how accurate the 2010 Census was. For example, we would encounter 4-bedroom houses with over 20 immigrants crashing there. We never got a remotely accurate count, due to lack of access and/or language issues. In a small % of cases, we were allowed to 'guestimate' based on neighbor observations. Even though this only represented less than 3% of homes, when extrapolated to the entire immigrant population, is says little about 2010 Census accuracy.
6
The 2010 census solved the participation problem by removing all of the intrusive personal questions, except one, and confined itself to counting the population and making sure no one was counted twice. That is a risk with college students if they get counted both on campus and at home.
The one exception was forcing everyone to assign themselves and their children a "race" and that was the only one I left blank.
It sounds like the 2020 census is going to be like the 2000 census and will be packed with questions they have no business asking. The census is authorized in the Constitution for the sole purpose of counting the population for the purpose of determining how many seats in Congress are assigned to each state. If the stick to that, getting people to answer the questions won't be a problem.
There is a little problem with the 14th amendment to the Constitution that calls for a correction to the calculation of the population to punish states that deny citizens the right to vote. That formula requires knowing age, sex, and citizenship as well as how many people were prevented from voting but I am convinced that the government has been ignoring it.
3
I think that Trump and Wilbur’s attempts to put the citizenship on the census form will deter many people from participating in the census. The horror of Trump and Stephen Miller’s brutality (enabled by McConnell and Barr) to immigrants is sure to scare people away from being included in the census.
13
The Republican party benefits from an accurate census. For many decades, people have been moving from blue states to red states to find work; red states are where new jobs are created, and where the population is growing. Red states will gain congressional seats once again with the 2010 census. The rest of the counting issues are just noise around the dominant trend.
.
The real problem for the Democratic party is whether it can govern a state that is growing, rather than states that are already rich and shrinking. Every ten years, the Democratic party takes a hit as red states grow and blue states shrink. Only foreign immigration is saving the Democrats from losing even more to this demography problem, but immigration remains unpopular.
3
Actually, the growth in Red states is uneven. The cities are becoming increasingly diverse, reflecting in the Purpling of the suburbs. Meanwhile, rural areas are stagnating and losing the population.
Blue States still create plenty of job opportunities. In fact, there are not enough qualified applicants in certain fields. Corporations love to move to Red States where they have far looser responsibilities to their employees and the environment, with opportunities to gain extreme tax breaks & profits. So that's where the job growth is happening.
The problem with relying on technology for the census count is that internet coverage throughout the entire US is haphazard with rural areas experiencing the worst of it. The idea that the census should be taken only by electronic means is elitism by the GOP. What happens when a farming or remote community lacks coverage to upload the info? Is it stored for later? What if the device breaks?
The 1890 census burned because it was stored in a location vulnerable to fire. We only have fragments of it left today. Completely trusting digital with no paper backup, imo, has a similar weakness. It's too risky.
6
Between the IRS, the Social Security Administration and the 50 state-run Department of Motor Vehicles...there should be more than enough data to conduct a census by simply cross-checking information across all these agencies.
If someone can avoid detection from the IRS, lacks a social security number and does not have a driver's license....that individual will most likely avoid detection by a census employee.
Spending $92/housing unit to "count people" is absurd given the databases that exist in 2019.
14
@John I am with you 100% on this, but for many that is not a reasonable count...they want to get every last illegal counted so they can maximize their "take" from the federal government. If you took the financial rewards out of the picture then no one would want the illegals in their states/cities/towns. The mayors and leaders of sanctuary cities have made it clear they don't want anymore as there are averse to having them bused there. I don't trust the government to keep my data safe as they have already let me down once. The problem is that the feds and their contractors are completely incompetent when it comes to cyber security and they will not pay to hire the best of the best. Instead we live in a world where someone can get a certification from CompTIA (and others) and be given a cybersecurity job. I work in the software industry and was required to obtain a specific certification since my job was classified as being in cybersecurity. I went in and took the test after looking through a study guide and easily passed the test with only peripheral knowledge. I have since met several people doing cybersecurity work for the government and they are batting way out of their league, but they are "certified".
5
@John I would not be so sure other data can substitute. Germany long thought it did not need a census: everyone is required to register where they live. When it did a census recently, they discovered the registration system overcounted because people who moved--especially out of the country--did not unregister. For much the same reason, our voting rolls are inflated, but without fraud. Likewise, credit reporting companies have tons of information, but matching can be problematic.
5
A comparative analysis between data collection from the 2020 Census Bureau and IRS tax filings for both 2019 and 2020 would be interesting to read and how interested parties would interpret the analysis.
I was one of those randomly selected for the extended form. It came via US Mail. It looked like thrash mail. I nervously opened it and assumed it must be genuine after a quick web based research. The citizenship question did not bother me that much but it had many intrusive details about my financial status. With the way things with everyone hacking everything it made me very worried. I hope their systems are safe. Trust the government to keep my information safe? A government who failed to tell Florida state that their voting machines were under attack. Trust a President who says there is not foreign intervention in our elections.
12
As in so many other cases, the victims of any misinformation campaign will be the same people who have the most to lose from an inaccurate census. The mistrust in American institutions recently sown by the alt-right/Russian agents via the internet only builds on legitimate concerns that have historically given minorities and the poor real reasons to doubt the government’s intentions. Now the alt right has co-opted those concerns and morphed them into something utterly divorced from reality. Regardless, this will directly result in further underrepresentation for the people who need it most. It’s a self perpetuating cycle, and I can only hope that the tech companies will finally take a meaningful stand in defense of facts and truth.
4
You make a valid point. On Twitter a hashtag is trending “boycott census” I laugh because it’s a conservative conspiracy theory that sometimes the census is “bad.”
1
Consider the Census as a dry-run of Government-run Direct Voting. If the Digital Census doesn't work, neither will Digital Voting.
8
If the government had not wasted money on the citizenship question, that money could have been used to better prepare for the census. This administration undermines even our most basic constitutional prcesses.
39
Sounds like a situation rife for skulduggery ... is anyone surprised? Under Obama, the libertarian element characterized the Census as liberty stomping unwarranted government intrusion. Now, we can look forward to Russian intrusion?
What a sorry state we are in ....
11
Politicians are the worst when it comes to caring about computer hacking and IT problems. They are mostly lawyers or used car sales person types who could care less just like those in D.C.
Just read about the 15 year old student who in 15 minutes hacked into a replica model of the Florida election ballot system.
6
Like paper votes, a paper census is far more secure. As an engineer that has witnessed ID theft firsthand, seen coworkers have their IRS refunds stolen, and witnessed the 2016 election (with totally electronic voting), I am worried, too.
It is clear that the current Administration wants to undercount minorities, whether they are citizens, documented immigrants here legally, or otherwise. We have a Secretarty of Commerce that is not afraid to lie to the Supreme Court, and a President to lies as a matter of course.
I understand the issue regarding the ballooning costs. But this is no time to be penny wise and pound foolish. If you don't think our adversaries (who are not shunned from providing dirt or interfering in our affairs) would find this a ripe target, you are living in a bubble of ignorance.
29
@historyRepeated While definitely far more labor is required for paper it is the only way to get the most secure count. Computerizing voting and anything where significant money (or an election) is on the line is insane. Paper proof stops conspiracy theorists in their tracks.
2
“There are a lot of people who want to undermine our democracy, very similar to what we saw in the 2016 election,”
Yesir-re, and one of them is residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue now.
22
Why technology? You can’t hack a piece of paper?
9
Do you really believe that it isn’t possible?
What about a shredder...
1
If it can be hacked, it WILL be hacked. There are powerful state actors like Russia and China who would love nothing better than to sow even more chaos and disruption in our country - readily abetted by our now daily does of rank partisanship and mistrust. In that alone, they easily win even without having to delve into the complexities of actually breaking into the Census computer systems.
For decades now the Census has gained a tarnished reputation, even though well intended. It seems that every ten years now we face another "issue" or two, whether it's about citizenship or race or whatever. As a society we love to complain and this process brings it out even more. I'm stunned we haven't yet, for example, had a huge kerfuffle about being "forced" into a "binary" choice on whether the respondent is male or female. Maybe it should be like Facebook with over 60 choices. Race is similarly complicated by demands for mixed categories. Why do we do this to ourselves?
If we're now so incapable of completing this mandated task, perhaps what's needed is a return to the most basic simplification - how many people live here? Forget about how many toilets we have, who we sleep with, what gender we think we are today, and all the rest. There are many ways for that data to be gathered by others, so do we need a massive federal bureaucracy to spend a fortune on it when the real issue is just how many people are here??
7
@George S Most the questions the government has no business knowing. We need counts and that is it.
2
The intense focus on the citizenship question “has drawn away energy and resources in ways that have really been counterproductive to the bureau’s efforts,”
Here we see yet another negative effect of the Republican party's efforts to bolster its support by underhand means.
Gerrymandering has been around for a long time but using a census question to dissuade certain ethnic groups from participating and therefore to distort the count was a brilliant idea that only backfired because it was so incompetently carried out. Thank goodness.
Now we see that it has impacted the efficient functioning of the Census Bureau. This applies equally to the Immigration Service and to the Border Patrol and to various other government departments where Trump's insane meddling has undermined the workforce morale and its ability to do its job properly.
5
We need paper ballots. We needed them last time, and we need them now.
25
Yes. What I like to call the Left Coast, California, Oregon and Washington already votes by mail with a paper ballot. Easy! No long lines, no missed time at work.
The Census should be as always on paper, I believe I read that they are printing the Census already.
6
@Charlie Messing Well that is quite the spin. There is zero proof that any machines were compromised during the last election. I am with you though on paper ballots. They are the only safe and secure solution. Computerized voting systems are not secure for a multitude of reasons including:
-The voting software and hardware are both proprietary and therefore not available for review and testing by those who the general public who can and will do so. Closed systems have flaws and ones such as those used as voting machines have to open source. Nobody what your party affiliation everyone wants an accurate count.
-Both the software and hardware are obsolete either when they ship or shortly there after. The software has to be updated to implement security patches and I am certain there is not orchestrated effort to make sure ever last machine is updated.
-The people running the machines are for the most part completely unqualified to handle voting as most have no understanding of how easy the devices can be compromised. If your experience is spreadsheets, facebook and email then you are qualified to vote, but not even remotely qualified to supervise their use. All it takes is for one USB stick to be inserted into one machine to doctor the vote.
4
@JimH
So we agree then?
1
So there is (justifiable) fear that malicious foreign actors, specifically Russia, are trying to undermine our democracy. I think it is a little late for that fear. They already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams on November 8, 2026.
2
@Chuck Burton Please see my proper post below that reads 2016.
The time has come when the USA can't even count its people without worrying about security of the data and information. If much of what is said in the article is true the bigger concern should be how the most powerful and weaponized nation on the earth is doing to assure our safety.
As an aside, India, a third world country, seems to be doing a good job in counting their 1.3 billion, about four time as US, population.
6
I remember a feature article about the head of the last Census that had an image of him in his office. Every desk and credenza had huge stacks of paper. It reminded me of a co-worker that printed out every e-mail so he could read them and make notes. My first thought was what is wrong with this picture. Digital has to come, one way or the other. I expect they will find all kinds issues that will get to resolution more quickly with elimination of paper. The Census is not a moon launch. It is more like the huge tractor that takes the rockets to launch pad. You have time to fix things along the way.
1
I was a census worker in 1980. Even then, the problems included discarded census bags and otherwise problematic issues, particularly in rural areas. Given the myriad issues today and an incompetent Administration, it is already difficult to believe that we will get an accurate census in 2020, a nail in the coffin of Democracy.
6
Yes, indeed. And tragic.
1
When I joined the military in 1966 I was young and dumb with regard to how people in power actually behave. I trusted my country's leaders to do the right thing. It took years for me to realize that many politicians/political appointees/judges/military officers/government officials will ignore their oath of office when it suits their interests.
That said, I have no confidence that the party in power when a census is taken will not influence/alter the results to hold on to political power. I say this because over the years I have watched politicians and the courts rig the system to help a party hold onto power. Look at the current situation SCOTUS says that unlimited secret money is free speech and that they have no power to declare gerrymandering unconstitutional. One does not need to be a deep thinker to recognize partisan poppycock by the Roberts Court.
Given the behaviors of the current party holding power why should any American have confidence that the 2020 census results had not been shaped/rigged in some way to help the party in power stay in power.
The census needs to be protected from the party in power regardless of what party that may be. There needs to be independent oversight of the equipment/software used to gather and parse the data and process used to validate the data. We need someone like Col. Lawrence Wilkerson to organize and lead a team to oversee the 2020 census — someone who can be trusted.
9
I once considered the U.S. Census as a trusted source of information about my country just by default.
The current GOP, however, aggressively seeks anything that will push a dishonest narrative to remain in control.
6
If the census used paper ballots filled out by thr respondents, and kept them for reference, cyber attacks would be much more difficult. Perhaps the political appointees do not care.
5
I did read that the government is printing the Census form. The digital form is an option.
The 1890 census was automatically tabulated with a machine invented by Herman Holerith. The success of that technology led to the founding of IBM. In 1952 the census bureau purchased the first (non IBM) UNIVAC computer, the original "electronic brain."
Technology, or our ability to manage it, seems to have gone off the rails sometime in the 20th century.
4
"But the Census Bureau has had to scale back testing of that technology because of inadequate funding ..."
Anyone who knows anything about IT knows test, test, test, and then test again. Not testing enough is the type of nonsense that occurs with budget cuts. Look at the IRS.
On a secondary note, I question the entire idea of going digital for something as crucial as the census. Bear in mind, you have part time, low wage, temporary workers being entrusted to input data into a new (and largely untested!) system. That is not just asking, it is begging, for trouble.
The census is conducted once every ten years. No matter what the dollar cost we should be able to afford it.
I absolutely demand a paper ballot when casting my sacred vote. As citizens we should demand a secure paper trail for something as critical as the census. Often times the cheapest solution is the worst solution.
11
@Concernicus I'll add that the software needs to be made open source so that others, who are several orders of magnitude more qualified than those who wrote it, to evaluate it. No one wants an inaccurate count.
Fears of Census 2020 likely being subject to the technological glitches and cyber attacks become less threatening when viewed against the possibility of its being hijacked by the Trump administration to serve its own partisan ends.
4
Why do we trust our banking information to the web but not our census data? Or our votes? Makes no sense.
1
@Richard
I do not trust my banking to the web. I still deposit my checks via US Mail or in person. I do not even have a debit card. I write a paper check. I refuse to even consider 'auto pay' for any bill.
Yes, I know that the banking process is then all digitized. But I do not trust it. I maintain a paper trail.
9
My husband is an IT security expert by profession and is very cautious. Back before Putin attacked our elections, Oracle Corporation’s CEO Larry Ellison had offered to create a SAFE online voting system for the U.S. government back in the early 2000’s, the government declined. We live where we have paper ballots, we like this.
3
So there is (justifiable) fear that malicious foreign powers, specifically Russia, are trying to undermine our democracy. I think it is a little late for that fear. They already succeeded beyond their wildest dreams on November 8, 2016.
3
With the fox guarding the henhouse, whose to worry?
We at least need a short-form paper backup which could be compared to the digital long-form.
4
Patron me, if I sound cynical, but this new process sounds ripe for corruption.
7
"...field workers going door to door...." are part of every census. Trump has agreed to omit the citizenship question from the census firms filled out by individuals and households. Do we know if a citizenship question could be slipped into what these door to door workers ask? Having worked in government at several levels, self-appointed guardians of the gate often twist face to face processes to fit their political views. Adding further complications, the process of vetting the thousands census workers is minimal and cannot reliably screen out those who would add their own scrutiny to the process. The "True the Vote" activists and poll watchers are a comparable example.
I'm glad that the citizenship question has been dropped and that the possibilities of problems stemming from modern data screening and analysis are being considered. Still, there is room for the intrusion of bias that could produce undercounts in areas with immigrant populations. The Trump administration has agreed only to drop the citizenship question from the main census forms. They have not agreed to anything else that is not expressly prohibited.
3
@Ernie, I am suspicious do to Trump so uncharacteristically dropping the citizen question without a lawsuit involved.
I know this may cause chaos, but maybe each individual state should run their own census in parallel. Really basic, no need for the complicated packet of questions the Feds ask. States have even worse individual IT infrastructure, but I do not see an alternative.
The stakes are too high now.
8
I worked the 2010 Census. The bulk of the work was paper, and, from my perspective, every effort was made to capture a good representational count - for example, there were dedicated on foot projects to count the homeless and single room occupiers. This shift to digital is beyond worrisome. I think there’s zero probability that the Census won’t be hacked and/or disrupted, and it’s in the best interest of the WH and Republican Party that this happens on as wide a scale as possible.
84
the republicans will go to any lengths, including illegal, to keep their gerrymandering and other voter suppression, abuse of undocumented, and now likely hacking the census. based on past performance, you can count (pun intended) on it. also, this recent push for ICE to raid cities is probably a direct result of being told no to adding citizenship question to census. i will not be surprised when the hacking of the last election shows djt actually lost in every state. besides DJT there are many grifters in the senate and house who would use these tactics, with a little help from their foreign friends.
6
@the doctor I was wondering if the Administration agreed to go forward with the census without the citizenship question. It's clear now why. Without a paper trail, they can skew the data and who can prove it?
9
I fear you are correct. We must insist that digital methodology not be the only or primary source. We must have handmarked paper records.
6
We've already seen the pattern.
Unable to win elections due to unpopular positions on issues, republicans have resorted to voter suppression with voter ID laws and extreme gerrymandering to rig districts to be a lock for their candidates. And that was before the Stable Genius seized the party.
Now it'll be an easy step from rigging elections to rigging the census for those whose conscience was already shaky.
As we've seen with the evidence brought to light by an estranged daughter on gerrymandering, the republicans have been working diligently on dirty tricks for decades. You can bet that they have a nice little layered cake prepared to influence the census their way.
And the fox is in charge of the hen house.
93
@Steve W
Who are the "private companies" helping them out???
This does not bode well for an accurate count.
6
@Steve W Yes, it's obvious, isn't it, that they will change the census to whatever they want it to be.
3
@Steve W In this case rigging means not getting the results you wanted.
1
“the American population is fertile ground right now for conspiracy theories and manipulation.”
Right, and for good reason. Technology has major trust issues. Funny, we've always been told how it would solve problems, not create them.
13
The census being a human endeavor is prone to error. No amount of technology is ever going to solve that.
3
The track record of Republicans in general and this administration in the extreme is that they are willing to dispense with the idea of democracy to meet their corporate and extremist ends.
They are also willing to lie about everything.
See Wisconsin if you doubt me.
If this administration is embracing new technology I am sure it is because they think that they can cheat with it.
This is my assumption with all Republicans everywhere and I will not trust the results.
48
I love the image at the beginning of the article. But, I wish it represented the population better by including more elderly people.
1
@Shermie
Actually my first thought was how much it looks like the images generated when Professor Xavier is using Cerebro - the X-Men machine that can pinpoint anyone's location and identify them as mutants or non-mutants.
Do we KNOW that the Census forms being printed do not contain the Citizenship question? After all the census is being run by Trump toadies, and it would not surprise me to find out that just after it's too late to fix, they find that they've printed the 'draft census form' with the citizenship question.
9
@jmac
If it's digital, it's not "printed". Perhaps this will prove to be a gaping loophole.
3
He had to give-in on the ‘census citizen question’ or violate Constitution, wise to cut bait. Besides, the damage is done, immigrants are scared, me too.
Plus he’s been underfunding the census project to create Bad Data on WE THE PEOPLE because he knows that benefits the rich.
So American Democracy depends on data to reflect our ‘United States’. Happy 4th or July.
6
Everyone should participate in the census, but personal information should be off limits. Call your congressperson today!
1
Republican politicians in Washington have been trying to control the census for years. The 2010 census was the first to include the ACS or American Community Survey which replaced the long form census questionnaire that was randomly given out to American households. They complained it was intrusive and asked too may personal questions like "do you have a flush toilet?", or "How long it takes you to get home from work?". They complained that the threat of a fine for not completing the ACS tramples personal privacy.
The truth is that these types of questions in one form or another have been part of past census records and are important as they give a closer look at the needs and trends that effect every day Americans. The data is invaluable for government to plan new infrastructure and better serve the community.
9
Reliance on underfunded technology by the census is scary. Baltimore City decided not to update its software. The result was a cyber attack that paralyzed the city for weeks and included inability to pay city workers, access information for property transfers, etc. It is also ridiculous that the national government is trusting Amazon to help after all the privacy concerns surrounding this giant. We need to go back to paper census forms until these issues are resolved.
7
Well, this article does a good job of spreading distrust in the 2020 census results.
So much for reassuring to those who are confused to begin with e.g. citizenship question.
8
Being now well-aware of the traitorous Republican M.O. of autocratic control of OUR country, I would expect "inexplicable" (HA) under-representation of non-Republican areas.
We know it is not beyond them to have a foreign power hack the census count in their favor, just as they did in the 2016 election. Those most affected will be minorities, the poor and anyone who might potentially oppose the Reign of Trump.
The undemocratic Trump administration has just been given its walking papers as far as targeting susceptible goops in the 2020 census. For this at least the SCOTUS has still prevailed - no thanks to "Squi's drinking buddy".
There must be no "plausible deniability" here. Trump and his cult MUST be watched with a microscope as must all of the census data. They cannot be trusted.
19
Where are all the constitutional originalists? Shouldn’t we do the census with paper?
55
@Corbin
Why don't you ask a constitutional originalist to show you the text of the constitution where the words "photo ID" appear in the requirements for voting?
5
Of course, if we go back to constitutional originalism voting could be restricted by the states. Back then it was usually restricted to white male landowners who cast their ballots publicly and not secretly. The franchise was so small that ID would not have been needed (other than a deed to land). It goes without saying we’d have no vote for president or the Senate,
too. Broken though I may think it is, I’ll still take universal suffrage any time.
1
The Trump administration did its best to sabotage the census by trying to interject the citizenship question -this effort prejudiced the census before it was to begin.In this time when so much on line is fake there is little chance that anyone will believe the request.The citizenship question identified the census as a Trump exercise-that will turn off thousands.
46
Last year, I began answering the Census Report but refused to continue since I had to provide sensitive personal information about our household. I believe it was unnecessary and inappropriate to request our income and its source. Besides, I’m not going to open the door to hackers and do an x-ray of our personal life.
62
American Fact Finder site, run by the Census Bureau, provides all such facts for researchers, demographers, planners, economists. Household income by zip code and voting district is information the bureau has collected and provided for decades. It's an incredible trove of valuable information. By the way, your 12 yr old neighbors could probably find out what your income and its sources are in a quick search of google. I hate to break it to you, but you really are a member of this society, in sickness and in health.
30
Although this information has been collected for decades, we now live in a world where personal information can be weaponized. It is understandable that people would be unwilling to share it like before. The fact that the information can be found some other way doesn't mean we should just throw up our hands and say, "who cares?"
23
@RCRN
Which is why I refuse to answer many of the questions - the government already has the information, scattered across various agencies.
The census collects it into a single easily accessed file that can be made available to third parties under the guise of 'research' so that swaths of the country can be shoe-boxed into 'identities'.
According to the Constitution the census is to:
.."cause the number of the inhabitants within their respective districts to be taken; omitting in such enumeration Indians not taxed, and distinguishing free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, from all others; distinguishing also the sexes and colours of free persons, and the free males of sixteen years and upwards from those under that age."...
The 14th amendment modified the language to remove "Indians not taxed" because that no longer was true and mandated that all people counted as whole persons, removing the 3/5ths designation for slaves. (I've always wondered why 3/5ths. Why not 5/8ths? 9/16ths? Does anyone know?)
The government has continually increased the amount of information it asks without anything other than "because we need to know' as a reason.
By the way, the fine for not completing a form is $100; $500 if you give false information.
I'll take my chances given that cell reception is really bad here, google maps usually sends people to an address miles away and even the sheriff has trouble finding addresses for 911 calls.
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Who remembers when we were trying to use sampling to make the Census as honest and accurate as possible? The in-person method underreports the population, and it hurts both low income communities and communities of color in particular. And now we are going into 2020 with a nominally tested solution, with a president who has been virulently anti-POC, and Senate who does not seem like they could possibly care less. At least every major government, healthcare, and civic institution in America isn't dependent on the results of the 2020 Census. Oh, wait...
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@Scott S.
I remember that sampling proposal. That was part of the Republican project to undercount minority votes. Here's a NYT story about it.
First, the Republicans made it difficult to count minority and low-income votes by cutting the budget for the census.
Then, they brought a case to the Supreme Court to prevent the Census Bureau from using statistical methods that were recommended by non-partisan statistics professionals to correct for the undercounts.
The Republican-majority Supreme Court decided for the Republicans, by a 5-4 vote, with 5 Republican justices voting for the Republicans, and 4 Democrats against.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/26/us/jarring-democrats-court-rules-census-must-be-by-actual-count.html
Jarring Democrats, Court Rules Census Must Be by Actual Count
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
JAN. 26, 1999
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@Scott S. "Sampling" frequently predicts the wrong winner of elections. It is also much easier to cheat compared to, say, Gerrymandering. Why do you trust the politicians to count you when they aren't actually counting you?
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@Don B
Because the experience of 300 years of statistics is that it's more accurate to sample a population of people than it is to try to count every single one.
This assumes that you have statisticians who understand sampling methods and are trying to get an accurate count (rather than boost one party or interest group), and understand the limits of sampling, confidence intervals, sampling bias etc.
If you don't have people who follow the rules, you won't get a reliable outcome whatever you do.
Oh, and BTW, be sure to have paper records for backup.
We are going to find out, probably sooner rather than later, that anything that relies on the internet for data collection is totally vulnerable. Whether the data is deleted or altered, that can and will happen. Which is why we are, hopefully, going back to the future in elections with the gold standard being the paper ballot marked by a human.
Specifically with the census there is no audit trail. And if a hack were done with precision, for example by deleting one household in a hundred in targeted census blocks, it might never be discovered and even if found it could not be corrected easily.
And in addition we have the near certainty that because of the fight over the citizenship question and the threatened family deportations there will be a low response rate in immigrant and Latino communities.
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Even w/o the citizenship question, the Trump administration has achieved its aim to scare undocumented immigrants into avoiding participating in the census. Of course, it helps that so many people (citizens and non-citizens alike) are so gullible and so susceptible to misinformation and disinformation campaigns. Regardless, the damage has been done. Mission accomplished. The destruction of America continues.
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Who wants illegal aliens participating in the census? Oh, I forgot.... most of the DEMs running for office. Where are people , like me , a moderate L of center person, supposed to look for representation/and for hope to rid us of Trumpism?!
‘It may be because of hacks
Common sense the census lacks
Don’t worry, be happy ‘
‘Census may be filled with glitches
If you poor or be the richest
Don’t worry, be happy ‘
‘Filled with all disinformation
Causing problems for our nation
Creatin’ frustration’
‘Then it starts, the litigation
Causation humiliation
Rue nation?
Solution?
Don’t knowtion
More education from ocean to ocean?
Some notion!’
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I am not concerned about the new technology issue because it is hard to see how it would result in an under counting of specific populations. If it messes up it will mess up against everybody.
For sure, I will use the paper system.
However, wouldn't it be ironic if a Russian census disinformation campaign led to the under counting of white voters? This is the part Republicans do not get -- eventually, what worked against Democrats in 2016 will be used against Republicans. It is all about the churn.
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@Brian Prioleau
I wouldn't put it pass Trump to give Russian Intelligence the passwords.
He keeps saying the only thing he cares about is winning. He said he would take information from a foreign government to use in our elections. (Information is a thing of value so that breaks the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.)
Why wouldn't Trump compromise the Census to steal Congressional seats?
Anyone who thinks the Party of Trump is "reasonable people with whom we happen to disagree," is blind and deaf.
Mueller is a Republican appointed by a Republican appointed by Trump.
Mueller said:
-Russian intelligence is hacking our actual election systems at the state level (page 50), plus the hacks on the DNC and the massive propaganda campaign.
-that Trump obstructed the investigation into Russian ATTACKS on our elections. (This is not meddling. Why does the media keep calling it meddling?!)
-that he couldn't clear Trump of crimes.
-and that his Report was an Impeachment referral ("the Constitution has a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president.")
None of that is "reasonable," but 90% of the Republican Party is protecting a traitor in the Oval Office trying to make himself "president for life."
Wake up America. This is not normal. This is a hijacking of the Constitution.
Every time Trump accuses someone else of a crime, it is because he committed that crime and wants to normalize it.
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@Brian Prioleau
Sophisticated and clever as the Russians are, I doubt that this scenario will ever happen. However, apart from wanting to increase support for the Republicans, chaos of any kind would suit them fine.
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I worry because I do not trust republicans in general and the Trump administration in particular, especially concerning the counting of residents and the data collected about them during the census.
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This article is a wakeup call. Our government is failing us in ways that are both mundane and remarkable. Whether its Russian interference with elections or Chinese interference with the 2020 census, federal and state governments are relying publicly accessible computer networks rather than building their own fiber optic networks that totally isolated from the internet and have no direct or indirect public access.
Build a wall, an impenetrable wall, to protect our elections, our electric power grid and even our census data.
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@OldBoatMan
Yes, there is no reason for critical infrastructure to be connected to the internet.
For example, power plants are all connected to each other using actual wires. Any communications needed within the troops could be done over those wires. Why would you open up our owe plants (seven nuclear power plants) to hacking by contacting then to the internet?
If we could afford to count everyone in 1790, using horses, how can we not be able to count everyone now, using cars and public transportation?
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@McGloin I am with you on the manual counting, but people are a lot more mobile and not quite as easy to pin down as you would think. I am rarely in the same place from week to week and I live in a resort area where no one knows who is permanent and who is not. For those living in gated communities they are there for a reason and they do not want anyone knocking on their door for any reason other than friends.
I hope this doesn’t explain why the census question battle was so quickly abandoned.
Then again, who would put anything past the current crop of Republicans, including fraud?
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@AnneThe damage may already have been done in the immigrant communities. The know the intent of the proposed citizenship question and they do not trust our government.
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Once again the Republican strategy of inadequately funding government agencies has severe impaired its ability to conduct a necessary function, in this case the census.
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@Gusting
Here a news flash, the government did not start planning this census in 2017. Most of the potential cluster fluke was created well before that. Broken clock Trump unintentionally offered up a way to help immigrants but racist dems turned it down go figure.
The Dems own this evil clown show too because they sat on their hands and were silent for most of the decade. You cannot fix problems until you own your contribution to the problem.
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@skramsv Somehow I don’t think this census would be as shambolic if conducted by a President HRC. Call me crazy.
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@skramsv
The Republican attack on Census funding and all other government funding goes back decades.
Republicans have controlled the House for 14 of the last 20 years and the Senate for 16 of those years.
Even when Obama was president you were essentially running the government because the House controls the money, (unless of course the president thinks he can do anything he wants with no congressional oversight.)
But, the Party of Trump never takes responsibility for the disasters they create.
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