The 2020 census count wrapped last week with the U.S. Census Bureau reporting that 99.9% of Colorado households were counted, but experts say it’s too early to celebrate success in a census that took place amid a pandemic and a contentious political environment.
Now that the federal government proclaimed the counting finished, it’s time to crunch the numbers that will decide how many seats in the U.S. House of Representatives each state gets and how billions in federal dollars are divvied among the states.
This was the first census in which households were asked to respond to the survey via the internet and then census-takers followed up with mailers and door-knocking in an effort to find those who didn’t respond.
So how did Colorado do?
Nationally, the Census Bureau reported that of the 99.9% households that responded, 67% self-responded, meaning no follow up was needed. In Colorado, 70% self-responded. The Front Range posted the following self-response percentages, according to 2020census.gov:
- Adams County: 72%
- Arapahoe County: 76.3%
- Boulder: 77%
- Broomfield: 77.2%
- Denver: 69.3%
- Douglas County: 81.5%
- Jefferson County: 80.1%
- Note: The census website did not have results by county for the follow-up response rate
John Thompson, who served as the U.S. Census Bureau director from 2013 to 2017, said it was too early declare victory for reaching 99.9 % of households. The count should have been extended so that census takers could be sure that they not only covered every household but also all of the people in each house.
“You can trust the number but the quality behind the number you don’t know anything about it,” he said.
He also has concerns because the Census Bureau has said it will finish analyzing and crunching the numbers within two months, to meet the Dec. 31 deadline for delivering numbers to the president. Before the census started and the pandemic hit, the bureau had said that would take five months.
“If they rush, the quality is not going to be as good,” he said.
It wouldn’t be a surprise for the final numbers to face legal challenges, especially since the count itself faced multiple lawsuits.
Colorado joined three lawsuits, including a failed attempt at extending the count. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that field operations could cease on Thursday it gave the Trump administration authority in tallying the numbers used for apportionment no matter who wins the presidential election, the Associated Press reported.
The state also was part of a successful bid to strike down Trump’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the survey. And the third lawsuit, which will be heard later this year by the Supreme Court, seeks to answer the question of whether people living in the United States illegally can be counted toward congressional apportionment.
