A botched decennial census — a possibility that is looking more likely with the Trump administration’s push to rush the count — will create a nightmare next year and beyond.
“The more screwed up the original count, the farther away from real information you end up, even with adjustment,”
Garbage in, garbage out…
Trump Maladministration has already screwed up Covid cases and death count…
They do not give a damn about getting Census count right because it does NOT help them!
How much of a factor will the millions of potential evictions affect the Census count as well as registration and voting?
Addendum:
ICYMI
Another fine example of how this badministration has totally f’ed everything up.
Look, we’re going to have to fix everything because trump has or will destroy or damage everything. Do the census again ASAP. Quit all this whining and just prepare do it. So we do it every 10 years starting with 2021, 2031 and so on.
And we make trump and Putin pay for it.
Wrap your head around it and know that we can do this if we put our minds and our backs into it.
That is all.
I’m a census enumerator. It is unbearably hot here in southern oregon so I’m lucky if I get a couple of hours in the morning to try and catch people at home. Most people are not at home. The lists they give me are not sorted so I have to spend 45 minutes writing down the addresses and sorting out the streets and numbers, even and odd so I can walk down and back. That’s not sorting is ridiculous, and besides it can be automatically routed with modern mapping software.
They give me an iPhone to see the list and answer the individual address questions. Type is small, typing is tedious. Almost like they want people to get frustrated and fail at enumeration (though it could be that the software and procedures were written by 20 somethings who have no idea what it’s like for older people).
On edit, they won’t give the same list the next day so any sorting is wasted time if I have to skip a day. What a waste.
I don’t have any faith in anything other than self-reported data at this point.
We are going to be spending years trying to undo the damage Trump is inflicting on this country, institutionally and psychically. As it stands, I’m doubtful that will even happen in my lifetime.(I’m 60), and if he is reelected, it will never be undone.
One thing is now certain: The President has way too much unilateral power. Way more than any of us thought.
My friend in S.C. working on the census says the same thing.
If the Democrats control the Senate I think this is quite manageable, but would take some doing.
No need for a new Census, just reopen the one performed in 2020, declaring it incomplete. Reanalyzing the data, doing additional field work as needed, passing a law to allow the use of statistical analysis to fill in undercounts (which were banned by Republicans), and then doing rigorous quality checks, and if any fail, doing whatever is needed to supply the corrective data.
The Census isn’t done until it is done. That should be our rallying cry. Trump (like so much of his college work no doubt) simply had an “incomplete”.
Up to now, Trump’s been largely dicking around with statutory law, but with the Census and the USPS, he’s now attacking institutions explicitly created by the constitution itself. It seems like it should be a lot harder to wriggle out of accountability for fucking up things that are enshrined in the country’s founding document.
Hey don’t forget the House’s request of Treasury to hand over Trump’s tax forms. It’s black letter law that the IRS was suppose to do that, they kicked it to Treasury, and Trump has been suing for a couple of years to not have them handed over. Either from the IRS of from the accounting firm he uses and his bank.
There are also, right now, legal limits on how such a redo could be used. While federal law contemplates the possibility of mid-decade census, the statute bans such a survey from being used for apportionment or for congressional redistricting. If Congress chose to reverse that statutory prohibition, such a move would still face a constitutional challenge in court.
Weak. Act, then litigate for as long as necessary, and use the interim to at least correct the political advantage stolen by the Trump administration. Meanwhile every Democratic state should politically gerrymander to the maximum extreme because the Supreme Court has said that’s OK. Then use the resultant power to dominate the GOP even more. It’s not a question of getting even. It’s a question of finally doing something about the destructive effects, and destructive potential, of the GOP.
Since Stacy Abrams didn’t get tapped for VP, they should put her in charge of sorting all this crap out. I bet she’d do a great job. It seems right up her alley. In any case, if not her, it needs to be given to someone who is going to make it their personal mission to fix this. Otherwise it’s just the disaster that keeps on giving.
“…the sheer logistical, technical and financial obstacles involved in conducting the national count.”
…are trivial compared to the alternative, relying on faulty census data.
“While federal law contemplates the possibility of mid-decade census, the statute bans such a survey from being used for apportionment or for congressional redistricting.”
Existing federal law can be superseded by new federal law.
Enough already with the learned helplessness. If the Ds can’t get the trifecta this election over R mishandling of COVID, the Post Office, the census, and everything else, the party ought to just give up and go home. If the party gets the trifecta and fails to use it to correct every one of these failures, it ought to give up, go home, and also consider euthanizing itself. Join the Whigs in their eternal rest.
How many reports will the GOP Census reject, in order to lower counting of minorities?
Have the Census Bureau “adjust” the figures to accord with their best estimates.
Biden will order a do-over. Problem solved.
I’m a CFS: census field supervisor. I support a team of enumerators in western New York. My team began with 25 people a few weeks ago. It’s currently at 15 after resignations. I trained with a class of three other supervisors; I’m the only one left.
I’ve had decades of experience in management at a number of companies in a number of cities. I know a bad system when I see one. This one was clearly a wreck from Day One.
I could go on and on and on about how the system they’ve created is not only difficult; at times it actually works against the user.
The other day one of my team was bitten by a dog set on her by some ignoramus, and every day it’s another story about threats and abuse being hurled at my guys by people who somehow believe the census obligation doesn’t apply to them.
Also common is the story that, after a resident replied to the census, they still got half a dozen reminders in the mail to send it in. THEN one of my guys showed up knocking on the door. My guys get sent to abandoned buildings, log the address as vacant, and then get sent back two or three times to the same address by the iPhone system they use.
I don’t know how you enumerators do it. They tried to get us supervisors to begin enumerating before the enumerators were trained because they were behind schedule. I just ignored the request. They can ask me to go out, but they can’t tell me to. I simply won’t do it.
Cash bonuses are being offered to enumerators who put in more time and log more cases. Also to us supervisors if we put in 32 or more hours/week between now and the end of August. 32 hours a week is no problem for me; my team needs my support to handle the shitshow they come across practically every time they go out.
It’s tragic that the information being generated here is going to be used at all. It shouldn’t. It’s useless. I don’t know how else to do it, but this is not the way.
And when the courts challenge comes, Biden can can have a face to face with VRA-gutter Roberts: redone census, or four more supremes.
Good article, it’s pieces like this that made me a paying customer.
The 2020 census has already failed. The only question is going to be about how best to pick up the pieces.
And a lot of correspondences is going to become public early in 2021.
