SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – Due to a Supreme Court ruling that upheld a Trump administration decision to shorten collection time for the Census, today before midnight is the last day to submit your information to be counted, impacting various civil decisions.
You can submit your census information through email at my2020census.gov, by phone, or by mail that is postmarked by October 15. Nonresponse follow-up census takers will also be hitting the streets today, trying to catch as many respondents as possible.
An estimated 10.5 million California households have already responded to the nine question survey with around 2.4 million of those being in hard to count areas. The Golden State proves to be the most difficult state to county due to a number of factors including a large, diverse population, and a high number of people considered “hard-to-count,” which includes recent immigrants, people who lack high-speed internet and people with limited English proficiency.
“We implore Californians who have yet to take the Census to fill it out today before midnight,” Ditas Katague, director of the California Complete Count – Census 2020 said. “This is our moment to be counted and make a difference for our family and community. If California households aren’t counted in this Census, they will become invisible for the next 10 years.”
The one-a-decade count, collected over the past few months, has sweeping implications including how many representatives Americans have in congress, informs how the federal government’s $1.5 trillion budget is distributed each year, and where communities need new schools, roads, clinics and other local services.
Due to the fluctuating deadline, which was once in July, then October, late September and finally early October, officials are worried that the quality of the data may be impacted.
“The census operation has been in a holding pattern,” Minnesota State Demographer Susan Brower said. “They didn’t say, ‘Great! More time. Let’s go back and revisit some of those things we’ve already done.’ The attitude was more, ‘What’s done is done, and we will put our energy toward closing cases.’”
Statisticians will have until Dec. 31, less than three months to process the data when they normally have five, although that date is being disputed in court.