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Concerns raised over census ending early

Bear Paw Development Corp. Executive Director Paul Tuss said the 2020 Census in Hill County did not go as well as it could have and negative consequences may result, depending on what the data from the rest of the state and country looks like.

Tuss said while the county’s number of respondents increased from the 2010 Census, the number of self-responses to the census is cause for concern.

He said Hill County saw a self-response rate of 57 percent this year, well-below the 62 percent seen in 2010.

“We didn’t really hit the mark with regards to self-response,” he said.

Tuss said the Census Bureau has other ways of counting people beyond self-reporting, but the drop in self-response is troubling.

“My concern is that our numbers this year, just don’t appear as good as they did 10 years ago,” he said.

Tuss said people being undercounted can have serious consequences. In Montana, one of the biggest concerns is funding provided by the federal government for projects like infrastructure.

He said for every person that isn’t counted in Montana around $20,000 less in federal grants will go to the community over the course of the 10 years until the next census.

Tuss said he hopes Montanans will not be looking back in 10 years regretting that they didn’t respond to the census.

“I’m hopeful that, when we look back at the 2020 Census, that we’ll realize that it was a good exercise and that everyone was properly counted, especially in rural America,“ he said.

The other census-related issue that Tuss said he worries about is Montana’s representation in Congress.

Montana only has one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, has the most highly populated congressional district in the country and is potentially on the cusp of taking back a second seat in the house, but Tuss said that potential is in jeopardy and could have years-long consequences.

“By not adding a second House seat, that is only going to get worse as our population increases over the next decade,“ he said.

He said it will take time for data from across the U.S. to be compiled and analyzed so it’s too early to tell what Montana’s chances of picking up a second seat are, but he hopes Montanans were counted as accurately as possible.

“Every person matters when it comes to an accurate count, and having additional representation in Congress,“ he said.

Tuss said artificially shortening the census from its Oct. 31 deadline was a foolish decision, given the complications posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That, of course, is a very bad idea,” he said, “ ... There is no benefit to anybody in having inaccurate census count.”

The deadline had been pushed to Oct. 31 due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, then was moved to Sept. 30.

After a federal court ordered The Census Bureau to return to the Oct. 31 deadline, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling, which sparked outcry from many members of Montana’s state government and congressional delegation.

State officials have declined to comment on the results of the census in Montana due to ongoing litigation against the U.S. Census Bureau that alleges wrongdoing that may have affected the outcome, as well as litigation related to its deadline.

Tuss said given the complications posed by the pandemic, including lock-downs, an increased anxiety about opening the door to strangers and the general complications of operating the census, the deadline should have been extended as long a needed for an accurate count, not just to Oct. 31.

Tuss said the complications caused by COVID-19 are especially concerning when it comes to hard-to-count populations. Lower-income communities and Native American Reservations historically had lower counts than they should have had, he said, which was not helped by the federal government or the fact the many Native-American communities have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic.

“That was definitely one of the challenges we faced when the federal government decided, in essence, to close the books on the census early this year,” Tuss said.

Officially, the 2020 Census has ended and Montanans will need to wait to see how the state’s numbers stack up compared to the other states.

“Now that the census has run it’s course, we’re really in a wait-and-see pattern to see what our numbers are and how that relates the the numbers in the rest of the country,” he said.

Tuss said he wanted to stress the fact the consequences of undercounts will pile up as the years go on.

“You don’t want any regrets when it comes to doing the census properly,” he said. “Because the truth is, we only do this once every 10 years, and if we don’t get it right we’re going to be living with the consequences of an inaccurate census for an entire decade, and that would be very unfortunate.”

 

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