As census takers across the country work to collect forms from the remaining 1.6% of households in the United States that have yet to complete them, a tweet from the Census Bureau has increased uncertainty surrounding when it will be completed.
“The Secretary of Commerce has announced a target date of October 5, 2020 to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations,” the bureau tweeted Monday.
The Secretary of Commerce has announced a target date of October 5, 2020 to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations.
— U.S. Census Bureau (@uscensusbureau) September 28, 2020
Since 1930, Census Day has been April 1. Despite the common misconception, the bureau emphasizes that Census Day is not a deadline, but it is the date the bureau uses to determine who has yet to be counted and where census takers need to be sent. The deadline for 2020 was July 31, per the bureau’s Operational Plan Version 4.0.
In April, however, after the coronavirus pandemic led to nationwide lockdowns, the deadline was pushed back to Oct. 31.
On Aug. 3, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced in a press release that the deadline would be pushed forward to Wednesday. This new date included “the hiring of more employees to accelerate the completion of data collection and apportionment counts by our statutory deadline of December 31, 2020, as required by law and directed by the Secretary of Commerce.”
Judge Lucy Koh in the Northern District of California wrote a preliminary injunction on Thursday blocking the change, arguing that “the Trump administration’s “stated reason for the August 3, 2020 Replan” is both “impossible” and would inflict unnecessary harm on the electorate.
“These statements show that the hardship imposed on Defendants from a stay — missing a statutory deadline they had expected to miss anyway — would be significantly less than the hardship on Plaintiffs, who will suffer irreparable harm from an inaccurate census count,” she wrote.
The Oct. 31 deadline was preserved — until the Census Bureau’s tweet.
The bureau’s online timeline reflects the new Oct. 5 deadline, but Koh called the move “a violation” of her court order.
“The Oct. 5 date is doing exactly what I enjoined the defendants from doing,” said Koh on Tuesday during a virtual court conference. “I just think that an entire schedule that’s predicated on an enjoined date is a violation.”
The Trump administration has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block Koh’s order. Koh scheduled another court hearing for Friday.
