Experts worry about errors if census schedule is sped up

After asking for coronavirus-related deadline extensions in April, the Trump administration now appears to be abandoning that request by asking Congress for extra funding to wrap up the 2020 census "as quickly, and safely as possible" in a move that could help ensure the number-crunching for redrawing congressional districts takes place on President Donald Trump's watch. Census Bureau officials had warned as recently as early July that it was already too late to have the numbers ready without an extension. And outside experts predicted Tuesday that speeding up the timetable would lead to an inaccurate head count that misses people in hard-to-count minority communities.

"It would be like giving an expectant mother in the early stages of pregnancy a lot of money to have the baby in 4.5 months," said John Thompson, a former Census Bureau director in the Obama administration. The Census Bureau is in the middle of the 2020 census, and some of the bureau's 500,000 door-knockers started heading out this month to households that haven't yet answered the questionnaire.

With the new coronavirus disrupting census operations in April, the Trump administration asked Congress to extend the deadlines required for the U.S. Census Bureau to turn in the head count data used for redrawing congressional district and legislative districts. The Census Bureau also postponed finishing field operations for the 2020 census from the end of July to the end of October. The Democratic-controlled House agreed to the extensions as part of coronavirus-relief legislation, but the Republican-controlled Senate has yet to do so. Senate Republicans on Monday instead proposed an additional $448 million in funding for the 2020 census in its coronavirus-relief bill.

"This funding would allow for additional hiring, staffing resources, and replenished contingency funding to provide schedule flexibility as the Census Bureau conducts its largest field operation, nonresponse followup," the Census Bureau said Monday on its website. "This flexibility is critical to helping the Census Bureau operate in the midst of unprecedented public health crisis, including trying to wrap up field data collection as quickly, and safely as possible, while ensuring a complete and accurate count." When asked about the status of the deadlines request, the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell referred to existing policy for the census timeline and said it had nothing further to add.

Historically, the Census Bureau is required to turn over numbers for apportionment, the process of divvying up congressional seats, by Dec. 31, and the numbers used for redrawing legislative districts by March 30. The deadline extensions would push back the apportionment deadline to April 30 and the redistricting deadline for state and local districts to July 31.

If the deadline extension for the apportionment numbers is granted by Congress, there's a chance the final months of the data-crunching would take place under a new administration if presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden defeats Trump, a Republican, in the November election. Wary of what they see as Trump's attempts to politicize the 2020 census, House Democrats say Senate Republicans should approve the request for deadline extensions.

"Otherwise, American taxpayers would be forced to pay for the most expensive and potentially least accurate census in our nation's history," said U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Earlier this month, House Democrats asked U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to withdraw two appointees from top positions at the U.S. Census Bureau, claiming they represented the latest effort by the Trump administration to politicize the 2020 census.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)