Professor O’Hare said the flood of public and available data opens up new opportunities for a much more accurate census, but only if the numbers can be proven accurate and the Census Bureau can overcome the difficult boundary between using private surveys and releasing publicly available statistics.
“So far there is no substantial support” for major changes to the census, Terri Ann Lowenthal, a longtime census expert and consultant to governments, businesses and other census “clients”, said in an email. “It’s too early without research, testing and transparency on these kinds of issues. And there will likely be even more caution regarding the use of third-party commercial data.”
That said, she added, many users of census data agree that better use of external records, done in a way that preserves confidentiality and integrity, can improve the accuracy of the population count and reduce its staggering $14.2 billion or so cost. $117 per person. households enumerated in the 2020 census.
What seems clear is that the current way of counting the population of a country is beyond its capacity. The first postal census was conducted in 1960. Since then, the nation has counted itself by counting the census forms filled out on millions of kitchen tables and then sending out an army of enumerators to collect data from the millions of others who didn’t fill them out.
The 2020 Census has simplified this process by moving much of the form-filling away from cumbersome paper-based surveys to the Internet and equipping enumerators with iPhones and census apps instead of clipboards and paper forms. According to census staff, electronic census forms have been overwhelmingly successful because they were easier, cheaper, and faster to process, and because the Census Bureau’s computer operations processed them with little or no problem.
However, despite these improvements, the proportion of residents who chose to complete the census forms remained unchanged at two-thirds of all households, where it has stubbornly held for four decades. The so-called follow-up of the remaining third, known as NRFU, by census takers, has been hampered by hurricanes, wildfires, political interference, and growing suspicion of the government among political right-wingers, as well as racial and ethnic groups. groups.
How redistricting works in the US
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What is redistribution? This is a change in congressional and state congressional districts. This happens every 10 years after the census to reflect changes in the population.
How it works? The census determines how many seats in Congress each state will receive. Mappers then work to ensure that all counties in the state have approximately the same number of residents to ensure equal representation in the House of Representatives.
Who draws new cards? Each state has its own process. Eleven states leave mapping to an external commission. But in the majority — 39 states — state legislators are drawing new cards for Congress.
If state legislators can choose their districts, won’t they be biased? Yes. Partisan cartographers often move county lines—subtly or blatantly—to group voters in a way that furthers a political goal. This is called gerrymandering.
Is gerrymandering legal? Yes and no. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts should have no role in blocking partisan machinations. However, the court left intact the parts of the Voting Rights Act prohibiting racial or ethnic fraud.
Steve Yost, a former senior census official who is a consultant for the Census Project, a group advocating for more accurate counts, lamented this. Tracking non-responders eats up about half the cost of each census, he says, but the census still fails to cover 2-3 percent of households.