The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by WillPostForFood on Saturday October 17, 2020 @09:57AM (#24810002)

Because of the bad optics of this, the US census has traditionally been extremely independent from law enforcement. The government has recently been attacking this barrier e.g. with the citizenship question

Two points on history and tradition. The census was originally carried out by the US Marshals. That should indicate the importance and weight of the project. The citizenship question was part of the census until 2000 (1950 short form, 2000 long form).

If you are using the census to distribute voting power to states, and the distribution is based on count of citizens, not people, then it is a fair question to ask.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by conception on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:36AM (#24810247)

It’s not based on citizens, but on the number of free persons living there (and three fifths non free). This particular word choice is important s as the census and the house have always been based on who’s living in the state not based on citizens living there.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by spacemanmatt on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:15AM (#24810124)

The census is used to fairly apportion infrastructure to areas where people actually live. That this is done by representation is an artifact of our political system, not the Constitutional mandate that requires he census. It's not a fair question, as you say.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by spacemanmatt on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:23AM (#24810168)

You don't have to like it.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by matthewmcg on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:32AM (#24810226)

The distribution of voting power is based on population, not citizenship. Non-citizens need to be counted too.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by nonplussed on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:35AM (#24810244)

Only citizens can vote.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by hobs on Saturday October 17, 2020 @10:37AM (#24810259)

It doesn't matter - when the document was written America had tons of non-citizens and those people were counted.

Slaves couldn't vote either, but in the famous compromise were counted as a portion of a person - the distribution of political power is why.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by kevinmchugh on Saturday October 17, 2020 @12:24PM (#24811099)

Citizens of a certain age, who meet certain residency and bureaucratic requirements and haven't lost the right due to criminal convictions.

Women only got the franchise 100 years ago, but had always been counted on the census.

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Re:The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. s... by jfengel on Monday October 19, 2020 @09:52AM (#24826337)

And children still can't vote, and are also counted.

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