Thread by @hansilowang

The Census Bureau hasn’t responded to my questions about the latest irregularities found in the census records that require more quality checks, but a DOJ attorney told a judge they’re expected to delay the release of numbers until after Trump’s term ends.
npr.org/2021/01/04/953…

2. Finding irregularities (the bureau’s calling them “processing anomalies”) in the census records is not unusual. Trying to count every person living in the U.S. has always been a messy process, which was even more complicated in 2020 because of the pandemic.

3. What was unusual was that the Trump administration, in addition to ending counting early in October, forced the Census Bureau to cut short the time for running quality checks used to make sure no resident is counted more than once or in the wrong place.

4. The Census Bureau usually takes about 5 months after the end of counting to do quality checks on the results of each once-a-decade census. At this point, the bureau has done less than 3 months of checks — while under pressure to get numbers out before the end of Trump’s term.

5. Why has the Trump administration been so keen to get numbers out soon — the same administration that asked Congress in April to extend legal reporting deadlines to give the Census Bureau more time because of the pandemic and then abruptly stopped asking for extensions in July?

6. July was when Trump put out a memo calling for an unprecedented change to who is counted when reallocating House seats & Electoral College votes. The 14th Amendment says the “whole number of persons in each state” must be included. Trump wants to omit unauthorized immigrants.

7. Trump would need to get control of the new state population counts from the 2020 census to try to make that change, which comes with more hurdles because there was no question about immigration status on last year’s forms.

It’s not over until it’s over, folks.

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1344870980741693446