The Census Bureau will miss the year’s deadline for the first time since December 31, the date was set by Congress 40 years ago.
If the bureau does not deliver the numbers used to determine electoral districts, President Trump
Donald Trump Trump to shorten the trip to Florida, returns to Washington on Thursday Intel vice president says government agency cyber attack “may have started earlier” Secret Service making changes to presidential details amid concerns over members current aligned with TrumpThe company’s effort to exclude undocumented migrants from counting may not work, reports the Associated Press.
An anonymous and unauthorized source from the Census Bureau confirmed the expected delay to the AP on Wednesday. The news agency notes that documents obtained in early December showed that cabinet officials did not expect the numbers to be ready until after the president-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenTrump to shorten the trip to Florida, returns to Washington on Thursday Intel vice president says government agency cyber attack “may have started earlier”. takes office.
After taking office, Biden will have the ability to terminate Trump’s directive that excluded people in the country without authorization to be considered when the number of seats in Congress for states is being divided, notes the AP. In addition to deciding how many seats each state gets, the census also determines how federal funds are distributed.
Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former Congress official who specializes in census issues, told the AP: “The delay suggests that the census bureau needs more time to ensure the accuracy of census numbers for all states.”
As the AP notes, the Census is legally required to deliver population data to the president by the end of the year, however, there is no penalty in place if the bureau misses the deadline.
The December 31 deadline is less than a century old, and, according to a historian who spoke to the AP, the census worked well before the deadline.
The historian, Margo Anderson, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said: “It hasn’t been a very controversial issue until this year, the year of a pandemic and the Trump administration revolving its goals and efforts to eliminate undocumented counting. breakdown. “
She added, “They are still trying to turn the numbers into something that feels right.”
In October, the Supreme Court responded to the Trump administration’s request to end the Census count earlier this year. Management claimed that the previous end date was necessary for the Bureau to meet the year-end deadline. Critics argued that the previous ending would have a negative impact on minority communities that had not been counted.
The 2020 Census count faced several challenges, notes the AP, struggling to operate during a pandemic, lack of hiring and a government that has reversed its intended goals several times.
Lawsuits and personal accounts of census officials claimed this year that accountants were under pressure to falsify data and use alternative methods of counting that lacked precision. Many workers, under pressure from supervisors to fill out as many forms as possible, would have resorted to guessing how many people lived in some households.