A court ruling has resulted in the extension of the U.S. census response deadline to Oct. 31.
While the deadline is normally July, this year, anticipating coronavirus-related complications, the U.S. Census Bureau initially extended the response deadline to the end of October to give people more time. But in midsummer, it moved the deadline up by a month without warning.
At the time the change was announced, some voiced concern that a shortened time frame would mean fewer households would get counted, particularly households in rural and economically disadvantaged communities, which run a higher risk of being undercounted in a normal census year. The bureau pushed back against this idea, saying it was on track to complete the census by the end of September.
On Oct. 1, a U.S. District Court in California ruled that the bureau needed to restore the Oct. 31 deadline.
“Defendants’ dissemination of erroneous information; lurching from one hasty, unexplained plan to the next; and unlawful sacrifices of completeness and accuracy of the 2020 census are upending the status quo, violating the injunction order, and undermining the credibility of the Census Bureau and the 2020 census. This must stop,” the court order reads.
As of Monday, Oct. 5, 99.7% of U.S. households had been counted, according to the bureau. In Alaska, 99.9% of households had been counted.
A breakdown of the Haines Borough household count is unavailable, according to bureau spokesperson Jeanette Durán Pacheco. Haines has a 33% self-response rate, but the total percentage of households counted is significantly higher since many have been counted by local enumerators.
The census, mandated by the U.S. Constitution, is a population count of everyone living in the United States that is used to determine congressional representation, redistricting and how federal and state funds are distributed. It’s conducted once every 10 years.
In Haines, an undercount of just 1% of the population would result in a loss of $744,000 over 10 years, according to Census Bureau statistics. This year’s census is particularly critical because the result could determine distribution of future federal COVID-19 recovery funds.
Those who haven’t responded are still able to respond online, over the phone or via email until the end of the month.