Census Memo Cites 'Unprecedented' Meddling by Trump Administration

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: New York Times

Census Memo Cites ‘Unprecedented’ Meddling by Trump Administration

Newly released documents show that top career officials at the Census Bureau had drafted a list of complaints about political interference in the 2020 count.

By Michael Wines
Jan. 15, 2022
Updated 9:21 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — A newly disclosed memorandum citing “unprecedented” meddling by the Trump administration in the 2020 census and circulated among top Census Bureau officials indicates how strongly they sought to resist efforts by the administration to manipulate the count for Republican political gain. (1)

The document was shared among three senior executives including Ron S. Jarmin, a deputy director and the agency’s day-to-day head. It was written in September 2020 as the administration was pressing the bureau to end the count weeks early so that if President Donald J. Trump lost the election in November, he could receive population estimates used to reapportion the House of Representatives before leaving office.

The memo laid out a string of instances of political interference that senior census officials planned to raise with Wilbur Ross, who was then the secretary of the Commerce Department, which oversees the bureau. The issues involved crucial technical aspects of the count, including the privacy of census respondents, the use of estimates to fill in missing population data, pressure to take shortcuts to produce population totals quickly and political pressure on a crash program that was seeking to identify and count unauthorized immigrants.

Most of those issues directly affected the population estimates used for reapportionment. In particular, the administration was adamant that — for the first time ever — the bureau separately tally the number of undocumented immigrants in each state. Mr. Trump had ordered the tally in a July 2020 presidential memorandum, saying he wanted to subtract them from House reapportionment population estimates. ... The census officials’ memorandum pushed back especially forcefully, complaining of “direct engagement” by political appointees with the methods that experts were using to find and count unauthorized noncitizens.

{snip}

Michael Wines writes about voting and other election-related issues. Since joining The Times in 1988, he has covered the Justice Department, the White House, Congress, Russia, southern Africa, China and various other topics. @miwine https://twitter.com/miwine

(1) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/sunday-review/census-redistricting-trump-immigrants.html

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/us/2020-census-trump.html

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Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

https://www.joemygod.com/2022/01/memo-cites-trump-admin-screwing-with-us-census/

Memo Cites Trump Admin Screwing With US Census
January 15, 2022

[2naSalit]

1. At least it's on record somewhere.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

3. If this fraudulent crime somehow manipulated congressional maps...all

maps need to be thrown ought and handed to independent commissions immunized from political interference and relying only on election law and electoral Science.

[2naSalit]

5. Yup.

And I am sure that's what's happening along with embellishment from the big lie. So this is why I was calling for a rerun of the census which could have happened over the summer.

Isn't there a remedy for this problem in one of the voting rights bills awaiting Senate approval?

[Alexander Of Assyria]

7. Congress created the Census Act so guessing Congress can fix the evil...or Rs ok with the another

knife stabbing at democracy?

And this goes to Scrotus also at some point if there is a major problem revealed effecting maps.

Good luck with that after the unsigned majority unspeakable travesty of a ruling on the federal mandates.

[DBoon]

17. Not likely to happen

when we have a political party dedicated to creating evil

[Alexander Of Assyria]

33. On the contrary, the progressive exposure of evil is what will change everything.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

8. Congress created the Census Act so guessing Congress can fix the evil...or Rs ok with

another tRump created knife stabbing at democracy?

And this goes to Scrotus also at some point if there is a major problem revealed effecting maps.

Good luck with that after the unsigned majority unspeakable travesty of a ruling on the federal mandates.

[yellowdogintexas]

26. no doubt about it, it did manipulate the map.

Alabama would probably kept all their seats if it had been done properly. They were very undercounted.

Parts of Texas as well. If our statewide count had been correctly carried out, we would have picked up 3 seats instead of 2. Throw in the people who refused to participate and it is even worse.

Our regional team leads told us that Dallas and Tarrant counties did very well. I know we worked hard!

It would have been even worse if the American citizen question had been included.

[ecstatic]

39. +1000. nt

[patricia92243]

2. Would an undocumented immigrant actually admit they are

that - especially on paper.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

4. The purpose was was to sow hatred, not actually catch anyone.

Side effect to further the election was a fraud lie …cause of all the brown non citizens the fascists love to hate and abuse as whipping boys for their endless white supremacy propaganda.

The hatred went deep, and mostly hidden until discovery every passing day.

[2naSalit]

14. The census does not ask your citizanship status.

They how many live humans are in the country on 4/1 of the census year, regardless of their citizenship status. I had to keep reminding some of my crew about that during the 2010 census.

[Marcuse]

21. Not that they didn't try.

[link:https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/supreme-court-finds-wilbur-ross-lied-put-citizenship-question-2020-census|

This morning, the Supreme Court told the country what we and our clients have long known: that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross provided a false reason for his decision to add a citizenship question to the Decennial Census. The court explained that the Trump administration’s stated reason for adding a citizenship question—enforcement of the Voting Rights Act—was “contrived.” The justices could not “ignore the disconnect between the decision made and the explanation given.” Bottom-line, this decision prevents addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 Census based on the administration’s lies.

[2naSalit]

22. Indeed...

They tried everything including stopping the count half way through.

[yellowdogintexas]

27. not likely - and anyone could refuse us at the door

or stop the interview at any time.

Since the citizenship question was not included, it was not a concern

[ShazamIam]

6. Our illegal immigrants slaving away for our wealthy corporations were not even going to be 3/5ths

of a person.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

10. The foreigners you mean? And these generally hardworking god fearing folk may

be called undocumented migrants, as well.

[KS Toronado]

9. With all the interference during King IQ4.5's rule

do we need to redo the census again to insure it's accuracy?

[Alexander Of Assyria]

11. The bombshell NYT report is, like all great truths, behind a paywall.

Pay for truth, lies are free. Wrong way round, media.

[pandr32]

13. +1

[dchill]

24. Truth. Do I pay you or do you pay me?

[truthisfreedom]

12. YES. The new administration should call for an immediate repeat census to correct the ills of the

last one.

UNDO THE EVIL.

[Historic NY]

15. So what are we left with...

So we are left trusting the counts were correct, like NY losing a congressional seat because of 89 less people. In my own community I think it was undercounted just due to the insurgence of new apartments, condos and houses alone. In the past, they didn't count correctly either some geographic areas have different mailing address'. Are we to suppose that they got that right. They forgot to count the military area enclave, even thou the base is gone, new housing remains. The idiots at one of those statistical website undercount the town

The block group for the town say only around 2500 difference, when the housing built is above that capacity. In the past, the town has had to have a revised count done

One developer alone has built more than 567 apartment units excluding, expanded condo complexes, mega houses 4-5 bedrooms. etc.

[yellowdogintexas]

30. Military does the census for its own properties. (thank the Lord)

for all on base housing.

Colleges census their housing
Nursing homes/extended care facilities census their populations
Correctional facilities census their own populations.

Apartments are the 7th Ring of Hell, because of the fluctuation of the population. I ran into a lot of new occupants who were not there prior to 4/1/20 but had not completed census for their previous address.

If we could get a good rapport with the complex manager we could clean up the lists.

[Rebl2]

16. Should be

new census done, but not likely unfortunately. All states should have non-political independent group that redraw maps.

[Botany]

18. And states and republican controlled state houses are using this to redo district maps

n/t

[BlueIdaho]

19. 2020 Census Null and Void.

Compare the results of the 2020 census to the previous census and if results do not follow it or other predictive trends and indicators declare it an outlier. Then order an emergency census to record the true picture of America’s population.

Cheating a census has got to be yet another Former Guy/GQP felony.

[FakeNoose]

32. Yep it should be thrown out - just trash it

I remember researching family ancestors through old census data. I learned that one of them - maybe it was 1880 or 1980 - was completely destroyed by fire. This happened long before the days of digital records. The Census records for that year had been stored in one building and they all burned.

Everything is now kept digitally of course, and old books have all been scanned and archived. So presumably that can't happen again. There is a precedent for the disappearance of Census records. That's what needs to happen with 2020.

[dalton99a]

20. Kick

[ancianita]

23. I believe it -- Trump's deep state strategy against his projected deep state enemies.

Maybe Congress needs to pass a law to have an outside objective international accounting organization do the US Census. Or an org that would monitor the counters.

In Florida, census people came to my door FOUR TIMES after I'd met the online deadline to submit my Census form. I showed them a screenshot of my submission, took photos of them and their badges, and told them that they'd damn well better not count me again, because I would find out and sue them and their supervisors up the line until I get to someone federal -- said I hoped it would be Wilbur Ross over on the east coast.

I got a lot of looks, but didn't care even if they were innocent tools because they all just said they were following orders. The more I think about how DeSantis ran covid counts, the more I see how he might have run the census here and the more pissed I get.

[yellowdogintexas]

28. I can tell you why you had so many visits, because I ran across that issue

a LOT.. For a variety of reasons, a property might have been assigned more than one census ID number. For me it was usually because the data base provided by the county showed more than one address, so even if the occupant returned the initial mailing the location would still show up on our lists.

I had a string of 20 houses with this problem, plus others in scattered locations

The correct listing was **** SW Loop 820. I would find several other listings for the same house number - such as ****820 Loop South; West Loop 820, South Loop 820 etc - as many rearrangements of those addresses as possible.

Because that is near my house I knew the correct addresses; the first house I visited had 4 different configurations, and the occupant had mailed in forms ages ago. He and I figured out what was going on, and I ended up sending these into my team lead and if that location had been counted we deleted the incorrect addresses.

I did one house on Sunday, and it showed up on my Tuesday lists - with a different census ID. I ran into them all over the place - not restricted to any given area.

[yellowdogintexas]

29. If you had answered the duplicates, they would have kicked out of the system

as duplicates because your personal info and the house number would have flagged it.

The only thing we could figure was the issue with the mangled addresses set up the property with more than one ID.

When you showed the person your printouts, a quick comparison of the info he/she had to the info on your response would have shown it was clearly an error. However the census taker would have had to know to check it

[ancianita]

31. Even if you worked the Census, I really can only half believe you if you were at the lower

data input level. Or even in a different state, even if it's a red state like Florida.

We know the difference between what data input people are told by middle management and what upper management actually does.

Red state data collectors are not to be trusted, no matter what they say the system will do. Which is why I never fill out any official form more than once, then always take a photo of it.

I showed a screenshot from my laptop screen, not a printout. All they had were their little app filled smart phones. They didn't take a photo of my screenshot, either. Instead, each census taker said they would report to their supervisor. Yet three more came after the first one. It was creepy.

Just my opinion, which in no way casts aspersions on your work or any corrections you've made.

Honesty, in a dishonest agency run by a mobster money laundering boss like Wilbur Ross, is an uphill battle.

[TeamProg]

25. My god, imagine how screwed we'd all be if TFG actually won - legitimately.. #$%&

[Evolve Dammit]

34. I was just thinking that. He was a busy orange menace for 4 years. Imagine longer.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

35. Is anyone really surprised?

[TimeToGo]

36. Will someone do something?

[C Moon]

37. I'm not. And this is one more example of why the GOP is standing solid behind the shit head.

[MissMillie]

38. Not surprised at all

It's not as though there's no other instance of a simple count being turned into a political power grab.