The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by koboll » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

I am a little skeptical about how dire this will really be. Census takers are allowed to guesstimate if non-responses reasonably make them believe they are undercounting:

>In instances where the bureau is unsure of the number of residents at an address after a field visit, its population characteristics are inferred from its nearest similar neighbor (hot-deck imputation). This practice has effects across many areas, but is seen by some as controversial.[6] However, the practice was ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Utah v. Evans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census#Procedure

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

#152

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #20

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it's not discrimination against race then, but of economic status. The disenfranchisement of poor people.

Poor white people aren't likely to have an undocumented person living in their household though. People in that situation are much less likely to talk to government employees or to fill out census forms in the first place. So yes it's is undercounting poor people, but also disproportionately immigrants and relatives of immigrants.

Poor white people aren't likely to have an undocumented - person of color - living in their household.

I've known a number of local households that had undocumented Canadians, Brits and Germans.

It's been my experience that Americans who are hyper-concerned with illegal immigration, aren't grinding their teeth over these nationalities.

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

#153

Post by specialist » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #27

CincinnatiMan wrote: post #3

> This means [it eliminated] literally a third of the time allocated for the Census Bureau to knock on doors, to try to enumerate the hard-to-count individuals, which happen to be African Americans, Latinx populations, immigrants, people in heavily transitory situations, tribal lands, some Asians. Random question but why would some races have more trouble than others responding to the census? Is it more to do with po…

Statistician (but not a Census statistician) here with a few answers: Black people have a higher than average non-response rate, even controlling for income, possibly due to a cultural mistrust of government institutions (for good reason). Recent immigrants may not be able to read the language the census was mailed to them in, and may also be hesitant to respond due to fears of deportation- the point of the census is…

"Families without a permanent home might not be counted because they are only temporarily living with another family when the census arrives at that house, or they might be moving between addresses so that they aren’t counted in the response by any household at those addresses."

Apartment living is also a big factor for postal balloting. Security of mail boxes, inconsistent updates for forwarding addresses, etc.

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

#154

Post by mensetmanusman » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

minitoar wrote: post #147

Auracle wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there wasn’t a constitutional question there wouldn’t be an upcoming Supreme Court case about it. And let’s be real - I find it pretty unlikely the constitution and 14th Amendment were written with massive amounts of illegal aliens being in the country in mind. Should we count tourists from other countries as well?

It seems obvious to me the census is intended to count everyone living there, legally or otherwise. So tourists wouldn’t count.

It’s not so clear. Tourists are free people, and it might make sense to count them if we are trying to allocate resources to serve all free people (which tourists are).

If you don’t count tourists, why would you count migrants who are supposedly going back to their home country? Maybe tourists who are here for 6 months would be analogous.

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

#155

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #143

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution also doesn't preclude counting who is able to vote. The constitution places limits on the government, but we can add things that act within those bounds. Asking about citizenship falls within those bounds.

Article 1 Clause 3 requires enumeration of all free persons.

Yes. Again, counting citizens does not also preclude counting free persons. We already gather data on peoples race and religion, proving that we can gather more data than just headcount, and citizenship information has already been gathered between 1950 and 2000.

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

#156

Post by mensetmanusman » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #107

woo49 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both sides have ulterior motives. Counting illegal immigrants in the census helps Democrats because liberal states have more of them. This is just a fact. You may think we should still count as many of them in the census, that's fine. But don't pretend there is no issue with one side of the argument. Mentioning motives of one side but not the other is naive. It also prevents us from having a real conversation about t…

Not American but I think a census should reflect reality. This means: which people (regardless of legal status) are currently living in an given area. How this then translates into policy is an entirely different question, but essentially misrepresenting what should be objective reality for cheap political points is asking for trouble. A bit like closing your eyes: it doesn't make things go away.

American, and agree.

It should also include the average amount of tourists (steady state) so that the presence of more people in an area get sufficient resources (to serve citizens and non-citizens alike).

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

#157

Post by mensetmanusman » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

censusthrowaway wrote: post #104

Here is some inside info. I work for the Census. It is a highly dysfunctional organization. Nothing to do with current administration. The various software the local offices use actively hinders the job of management and enumerators (the people who come to your door). Hundreds of and hundred of millions of dollars and incalculable time is wasted just due to this. Imagine the worst ERP or CRM that you have ever used,…

In the future daily low-cost high-resolution images of the country could give a real-time accurate headcount.

Is that being discussed? Would be a good way to get away from the 10 year lag data and have real time information to make policy choices.

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

#158

Post by mensetmanusman » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

tolbish wrote: post #36

cj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democratic Party using the judicial branch and SCOTUS to legislate from the bench because Hasn't the supreme court been majority conservative for quite some time? Not majority liberal? (unless your comment is sarcasm)

thought it was sarcasm at first, but it appears rubyistSeva genuinely isn't aware that the Democratic nominee was blocked four years ago on the basis of it being an election year, only for the Republican party to turn around and do exactly that this year.

This has the entire list of ‘N’s in U.S. history:

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/nominations/SupremeCourtN...

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

#159

Post by stdbrouw » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:28 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #105

stdbrouw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be extremely certain of your position and seem to find it impossible to believe that Robert Santos, the statistician in question, could have any motive other than a political one in sounding the alarm. However, "if people can pay their electric bill then surely they can respond to the census" is not a fact and it's not a logical argument, it's just your gut feeling, which you seem to find a superior sourc…

I can imagine neutral, nonpolitical commentary on the census process, but that's not what Santos is offering. He says that the census wouldn't have been fair even if the count had been extended, due to factors such as "the public policy climate" and "toxic immigrant policies".

Santos does not offer neutral commentary, but he claims to offer objective commentary: it is objectively possible that public policy and immigrant policies will negatively affect the census. You can't discount that possibility and ignore the arguments made in favor of that possibility (read the article!) just because you don't like someone's politics.

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

#160

Post by Retric » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

rc_mob wrote: post #66

Retric wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be close to 50:50 but it’s not 95:5. Less tainted is still tainted. When I say both sides, I mean both sides. Gerrymandering to give minorities districts for example does the same thing to undermine people’s faith in the system. The goal should be to outlaw gerrymandering not find some way to allow it to be useful politically. Should people in DC maintain the right to vote? IMO they should, but it’s beco…

Sure. But point is saying “both sides” right now is a harmful thing to say. The current Republican party is doing far more damage to democracy than any other in recent memory.

Sadly doing more harm doesn’t prevent each side from attacking the other on this issue. Having a consistent stance that every vote should count resonances in a way that picking specific issues just doesn’t.

I am not saying you can’t play the game. It’s a terrible idea to split your states votes while the electoral collage is in it’s current form. Acknowledging this is how things are, and we should come up with a better solution is fine. Fighting each issue separately isn’t.