The U.S. Census Bureau announced Friday additional delays in 2020 census data needed for redrawing voting districts across the country, which could send elections into chaos as states face tightening deadlines.
The bureau said in a statement a completed list of data is now expected by Sept. 30, six months after the March 31 legal deadline.
Several states will not receive the data until after their legal deadlines for drawing new districts, forcing them into a potentially haywire situation in which they will have to either propose new legislation or ask courts to allow them a free pass due to the delay, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan group dedicated to improving state legislative operations.
Jake Corman, Republican president pro tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate, said the census delays could lead to postponing next year’s primary election slated for May 17, 2022, a local CBS affiliate reported.
A census of the number of people living in the United States is conducted once every 10 years, as outlined in the Constitution. Data collected by the process is used to determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, or what is called apportionment. It also determines how much federal funding is granted to local communities across the country.
Instead of a flow-based release of data for individual states and districts, the bureau said Friday the population-based information would become available for “all states at once.”
“This change has been made because of COVID-19-related shifts in data collection and in the data processing schedule and it enables the Census Bureau to deliver complete and accurate redistricting data in a more timely fashion overall for the states,” the readout for the announcement said.
Counting for the census concluded in October, though the bureau has been delayed by sorting irregularities in college dormitory records and a higher-than-normal amount of responses gathered without preassigned “Census ID” codes necessary for matching residence addresses, a separate readout from the bureau said.
The readout added that states have been granted “prototype geographical support products” and “data tabulations” dating from the 2018 Census Test to aid in early developments for designs redistricting systems.
Additional delays stem from problems related to the virus pandemic in 2020 and an urgency raised by the previous administration to offer the once-a-decade census more time. The Trump administration argued an extension was necessary, and the former bureau director, Steven Dillingham, said in April the effort would “ensure the completeness and accuracy of the 2020 Census.”
Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, along with Alaskan GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, released a joint statement Friday to introduce a bill extending key deadlines for the 2020 census to ensure an accurate count.
“The Census Bureau should take all the time it needs to report its data and make sure every person is counted as mandated by the Constitution,” Schatz said. “Our bill would extend these statutory deadlines and ensure that we get a fair, accurate count.”
