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

#31

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #14

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…

There are many reasons. They discuss poverty in the article. I would agree with cultural distrust of government officials. And very importantly, everything around the citizenship question/issue. > The notion of these counts ever being used for enforcement — basically targeting high population, low citizenship-count blocks for ICE raids or whatever — that would be really, really problematic. Stepping back, think in ge…

think in general about a government that wants to target, arrest, and deport certain groups of people

Yes. They are deporting people who didn't come into the country legally. Its important to have an accurate count of citizens in the country since that's who votes. There is an upcoming Supreme Court case that will determine if non citizens should be counted for House representation.

You may not agree with it, but it is important to know. With that said, I don't think ending the census early is the right way to handle this issue at all, it's just slimy.

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

#32

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:12 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #26

rubyist5eva wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I'm sick and tired of the Democratic Party using the judicial branch and SCOTUS to legislate from the bench because they can't get their agenda through in Congress like they are supposed to.

> 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)

[deleted]

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

#33

Post by ghufran_syed » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:13 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #22

CyberRabbi wrote: post #11

From what I can tell, a second (third?) census extension is being denied. It’s not that the census is unusually being cut short. I got a different impression from this article.

The census bureau was original granted an extension that has been rolled back. It's not being cut "unusually" short, but the pandemic drastically impacted the census bureau's ability to do their work, and we are giving them less extra time than they say they need.

What government agency has ever said they need less time or less money? So giving them less than they say they need is the normal state of affairs for government agencies.

The only difference is that now the aggrieved bureaucrats have a receptive audience in credulous journalists who are always ready to write a story about how the current administration is "ending democracy" if they don't do exactly what the bureaucrats want. So you would expect right wing media doing stories on how the military, the VA or the border patrol is underfunded or has had excessive "political interference" during Democrat administrations, and left wing media (which is 95% of the "mainstream" media on the US) would be expected to say the same about different parts of the government with a republican administration.

Just normal politics at work - doesn't mean the stories aren't important, but let's keep things in context.

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

#34

Post by Retric » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #28

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish both sides would realizing their destroying people’s faith in the system And I wish people would stop saying 'both sides' when it's 95% only one side. That's the issue. One side is now against census so people aren't represented, restricting voting so people don't get a say, and people keep saying 'both sides'.

I don't understand the Democratic side here either. There's a question of citizenship, but census data is used to determine allocation of electoral college votes. The electoral college system being something that I support but that Democrats keep trying to undermine. Yeah if you come here undocumented, or illegally, there's pretty natural consequences. I don't think anyone should ignore that. And they seem to want un…

Counting everyone is literally what’s in the constitution.

Remember, when the country was formed immigration wasn’t some complex thing you just showed up. Picture an immigration official trying to turn back a ship full of slaves because they where undocumented or missing paperwork. Meanwhile they still counted as 3/5th person in the official count.

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

#35

Post by TallGuyShort » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #34

TallGuyShort wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the Democratic side here either. There's a question of citizenship, but census data is used to determine allocation of electoral college votes. The electoral college system being something that I support but that Democrats keep trying to undermine. Yeah if you come here undocumented, or illegally, there's pretty natural consequences. I don't think anyone should ignore that. And they seem to want un…

Counting everyone is literally what’s in the constitution. Remember, when the country was formed immigration wasn’t some complex thing you just showed up. Picture an immigration official trying to turn back a ship full of slaves because they where undocumented or missing paperwork. Meanwhile they still counted as 3/5th person in the official count.

I'd be fine with that, but let's be clear that that's not the system the Democrats move towards. Instead we have this weird system where a bunch of people jump through hoops to be here legally and a bunch of people don't, and Democrats pick and choose when they care about either one. There's no predictability, rule of law, consistency or sense on this issue from either party.

I began immigration to the US under a Democratic administration and finished it at the end of a Democratic controlled Congress and another Democratic administration. It was consistently a badly run, non-sensical process. So FOH with claims that Democrats would like a country with open borders or that they're much better at running a sane process.

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

#36

Post by tolbish » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:19 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #26

rubyist5eva wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I'm sick and tired of the Democratic Party using the judicial branch and SCOTUS to legislate from the bench because they can't get their agenda through in Congress like they are supposed to.

> 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.

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

#37

Post by mkl » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #22

CyberRabbi wrote: post #11

From what I can tell, a second (third?) census extension is being denied. It’s not that the census is unusually being cut short. I got a different impression from this article.

The census bureau was original granted an extension that has been rolled back. It's not being cut "unusually" short, but the pandemic drastically impacted the census bureau's ability to do their work, and we are giving them less extra time than they say they need.

I'm surprised they're not just cancelling or postponing it. In 2011, earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, displaced thousands of people. The national census scheduled for the following month was cancelled, and a replacement was later organised for 2013. I think the theory was that delayed statistics were better than unreliable and incomplete statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_census#History

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

#38

Post by tasty_freeze » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #26

rubyist5eva wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I'm sick and tired of the Democratic Party using the judicial branch and SCOTUS to legislate from the bench because they can't get their agenda through in Congress like they are supposed to.

> 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)

Republican presidents placed 11 supreme court justices in a row, from Nixon through GH Bush. Clinton placed two, and republicans have been whining about needing to fix the liberal supreme court ever since. GW Bush placed two, Obama placed two, and it looks like Trump will place three.

You are quoting someone, but I want to add on that "legislate from the bench" is a phrase that is invoked when the speaker doesn't agree with an outcome but never when they agree with an outcome. It means nothing.

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

#39

Post by solstice » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #14

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…

There are many reasons. They discuss poverty in the article. I would agree with cultural distrust of government officials. And very importantly, everything around the citizenship question/issue. > The notion of these counts ever being used for enforcement — basically targeting high population, low citizenship-count blocks for ICE raids or whatever — that would be really, really problematic. Stepping back, think in ge…

Dutch census recording religion enabled the Nazis to quickly round up the Jews living there a few years later during the occupation

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

#40

Post by jimktrains2 » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #31

bo1024 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons. They discuss poverty in the article. I would agree with cultural distrust of government officials. And very importantly, everything around the citizenship question/issue. > The notion of these counts ever being used for enforcement — basically targeting high population, low citizenship-count blocks for ICE raids or whatever — that would be really, really problematic. Stepping back, think in ge…

think in general about a government that wants to target, arrest, and deport certain groups of people Yes. They are deporting people who didn't come into the country legally. Its important to have an accurate count of citizens in the country since that's who votes. There is an upcoming Supreme Court case that will determine if non citizens should be counted for House representation. You may not agree with it, but it…

The constitution specifically says the census is a count of all "free Persons", not only citizens. Obviously SCOTUS will weigh in now, but I think it's important to realize the actual wording of what the census is.