The 2020 Census will be the first time Americans can submit questionnaire responses entirely online, but while some are touting the high-tech change, the new approach concerns some advocates.
, the president and executive director of the nonprofit , says there hasn鈥檛 been enough time or money dedicated to testing the technology.
鈥淥n one level, the use of new technology is obviously good and should be welcomed,鈥� Yang said. 鈥淭here is a concern however, that unless this technology is tested, we will end up with an inaccurate count.鈥�
Last year, funding uncertainty led the Census Bureau to . It also postponed the opening of some of its field offices. The bureau says it may consider including those sites in testing next year, but Yang worries that won鈥檛 be enough.
鈥淎ny gap in testing and any gap in discovering deficiencies in the use of technology is most likely to affect and hit hard communities of color and other communities that are hard to reach,鈥� he said.
On its face, the census might seem like one of the most tedious functions of the federal government, but it has major implications for our democracy. The , which happens every decade, affects everything from how many seats Texas gets in the U.S. House of Representatives to how much federal funding is allocated for local programs.
Here in Austin, officials are waiting to see how the new digital way of gathering data will affect a few hard-to-reach groups, including college students, the homeless and immigrants.
Austin City Demographer Ryan Robinson says college students should be counted as Austin residents, but many of them don鈥檛 know that. He notes that calculating the homeless population done on one night of the year. But Robinson expects it鈥檚 going to be especially hard to accurately count the immigrant population in 2020.
鈥淚mmigrant populations are often fearful of answering the census form,鈥� Robinson said.
Robinson says in previous years, census staff have tried to communicate that they鈥檙e not interested in people鈥檚 legal status, that they simply want to count them. He says they鈥檝e even worked with immigration enforcement to pause raids around Census Day. But, he says, with the Trump administration鈥檚 hardline rhetoric around immigration enforcement, there鈥檚 clearly a heightened sense of fear.
鈥淟et鈥檚 imagine that you鈥檙e here in this country working without proper documentation,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e probably going to be fearful of a government entity that comes knocking at the door.鈥�
Robinson questions whether a switch to online questionnaires will make immigrant families more likely to respond.
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