With the last few mail-in Census forms coming in (at a robust 72% participation rate nation-wide), over 630,000 census-takers are now fanning out to count households that haven responded. And individual states are finding their own unique ways to reach those last few residents:

Behind the scenes, the federal government placed a greater emphasis on partnering with local organizations to get the message out. State and local governments have used a similar approach. Stacey Cumberbach, the head of New York City’s 2010 census office, says working with trusted leaders in different communities and across city government has helped the city boost its mail-in rates from 57 percent a decade ago to 60 percent this year. (…)

In Minnesota, [state demographer Tom] Gillaspy took advantage of a few other opportunities offered for the first time by the Census Bureau. In February, the state compared the numbers of addresses it had on its list for every block against the census’ count. Where there were big differences, the state asked the Census Bureau to double check its list of addresses.

Later this summer, Minnesota officials plan to compare state data for the capacity of group quarters — including prisons, nursing homes, halfway homes and dormitories — against the population count the census came up with in those facilities. If there’s a large difference, the Census Bureau will go back to recount the population there.

The stakes are higher in Minnesota than elsewhere, as the latest projections indicate Minnesota could keep or lose one of its congressional districts by as few as 1,000 residents.

But the Census is important for every community – each individual left uncounted costs his or her local government thousands of dollars that would have gone to support schools, police and fire protection, and a whole host of other essential services.

And of course, a complete Census count will be critical as states begin re-drawing congressional and legislative districts in 2011.

The good folks at the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics blog recently took a look at how congressional reapportionment has affected state congressional delegations in the 20th Century, and specifically, which states have seen the biggest gains or declines in representation:

Pennsylvania has lost seats for a record eight consecutive census periods, beginning with the 15th Census in 1930 through the 22nd Census in 2000, and are[sic] expected to lose another seat after the 2010 Census.

Neighboring New York has also endured a significant drop in seats to the U.S. House. After holding steady at 45 seats after the 1930 and 1940 Censuses, the Empire State has lost seats in six consecutive census periods, shedding 16 seats in total to its current level of 29 seats today.

Two other states have lost seats by double-digit margins from their peak representation in the U.S. House - Virginia (-12) and Massachusetts (-10). However, each of these states reached their peak levels after the 1810 Census, when the country was comprised of just seventeen states.

A chart included with the story shows how many congressional districts each state had when it achieved statehood, how many it had at its peak, and how that compares to today. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how different a country we’ve become, compared to previous eras. For instance, California, Texas, and Florida each began their statehoods with only two (2) districts or fewer!

Congress has recently passed legislation banning misleading mailings that appear to be from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Republican National Committee recently sent out fundraising letters entitled, “Congressional District Census.” The words “Census Document,” and “DO NOT DESTROY - OFFICIAL DOCUMENT” are printed on the exterior of the envelopes. The letter deceptively mixes this official sounding language with GOP talking points and a fundraising solicitation.

The chairman of the Senate panel that oversees the Census has called these practices “despicable.” Census officials are unanimous in their condemnation of these mailings and believe they will confuse citizens and have a harmful effect on the returns of the actual Census. Even a former Republican-appointed Census director has forcefully criticized the fundraising letter. But most disturbing is a quote Politico has obtained from an anonymous Republican operative familiar with the misleading mailing strategy:

"Of course, duping people is the point. ... That's one of the reasons why it works so well,” said one Republican operative familiar with the program, who said it’s among the RNC’s most lucrative fundraising initiatives. “They will likely mail millions this year [with] incredible targeting.”

Fortunately, mailings like these will now be illegal under the new federal law.

As we have reported previously, a voter in Minnesota who decided to call the phone number listed on the mailing to complain about the misleading nature of the letter found that the number connects callers with a phone-sex line offering "live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl who will do anything you want for just $2.99 per minute."

The DLCC would like to remind the readers of its blog, once again, that an official U.S. Census mailing will never ask for donations or provide a number for a phone-sex line.

John D’Elia is a Klindt/Dye Intern for the 2010 Spring Semester

CBS News recently published an in-depth report on reapportionment following the 2010 Census, including which states might gain, which might lose, and how that will impact political power in America.

Congressional reapportionment and redistricting are closely related, but it’s important to understand their separate impacts. Any state with more than one congressional district can be redistricted to favor one party or another. But in states that gain or lose seats, political control in the state legislatures will be crucial in determining which party the extra districts favor or, in states that lose seats, which party’s congressperson loses his or her district.

According to projections, those states will likely be:

Discounting states that redistrict though non-partisan commissions, Democrats currently hold majorities in many of the states set to gain or lose seats, while many of the Republican-held states in the South may have to create additional majority-minority districts to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.

But CBS also looked at the impact of reapportionment on future Presidential elections, in which the South and West are likely to gain electoral votes while the Northeast and Midwest lose them:

Electoral votes are shifted, too. Unlike the House, where district lines could determine which party gains advantage from a new apportionment, the presidential maps' winner-take-all formulas go directly to the totals. This means new electoral math, and perhaps a revised list of battlegrounds.

Voting differences by region are well-known even to casual political watchers: the Northeast is now solidly Democrat and often liberal (in fact, there are no GOP House members in New England at all) while the deep South and much of the Midwest remain strong Republican territory.

Of course, all such projections depend on an accurate Census count with full participation. We’ve already discussed what a challenge this is. And with participation rates in the Midwest running noticeably ahead of the South, the final congressional allocation could include some surprises.

The Census is a much more complicated undertaking than a simple roll call. Because of language, cultural, and geographic barriers, some communities are orders of magnitude more difficult to survey than others. And because a 1999 Supreme Court ruling prohibits the use of statistical sampling to correct the results, Census officials have to get it right the first time.

The New York Times recently examined three communities to illustrate the unique challenges Census-takers face, starting with Wolford, North Dakota (population 50), which already boasts a 100% participation rate in the mail survey:

“Why wouldn’t you send it right back?” asked Jim Wolf, who has been mayor here so long that he cannot recall what year he took office. “It’s a rural community,” said Mr. Wolf, who is also the volunteer fire squad chief, “and I guess we go by the rules.”

In fact, some who have yet to receive their forms here (the census does not mail the questionnaires to post office boxes) have raised a bit of a stink among the farmers who gather for morning coffee at the farm supply business Mr. Wolf manages and at the one-room post office where Lynn Walsh hands out the mail.

But things aren’t so easy for the Census Bureau in other small towns. Officials are working overtime to try and boost participation in rural and heavily African-American Issaquena County in the Mississippi Delta region, where there’s only one person for them to count for every 116 acres:

Issaquena County and the entire Delta is plagued by poverty and illiteracy. People mistrust census takers for a variety of reasons, including a belief that the government is trying to catch them doing something illegal like misrepresenting the number of people in their household, which could affect benefits like food stamps, said Calvin Stewart, a Rolling Fork alderman, teacher, high school sports referee and spokesman for the town’s new antilitter campaign. (…)

Community groups in the area have done their best to calm fears and increase participation. They have recorded radio broadcasts and arranged P.T.A. presentations, enlisted pastors and formed Complete Count Committees. They have given practice tests to help local residents get census jobs, believing they will be less skittish about approaching houses and will be less likely to evoke a hostile response.

Issaquena’s participation in the mail survey is currently only 28% so far, compared to 53% in Hinds County (containing Jackson, MS) and 60% nationally.

Meanwhile, confusion is running rampant in immigrant communities in New York City, which probably poses the Census Bureau’s biggest test in terms of language:

At Masjid Aqsa, a Harlem mosque, Imam Soulemaine Konaté said that many of his congregants, French-speaking African immigrants who know very little English, threw away their census forms. He said they thought the envelopes addressed to “resident” were meant for someone else.

In Jackson Heights, Queens, volunteers for New Immigrant Community Empowerment who talked to day laborers on street corners often heard them say, “Eso no es para mí,” or “This is not for me,” dismissing the census as something important only for citizens and legal immigrants, said Valeria Treves, the group’s executive director.

In Flushing, which has the largest concentration of Asian immigrants in the city, the participation rate in some areas was as low as 25 percent, and after a few hours with the MinKwon volunteers, it was easy to see why. Aside from the linguistic isolation and fear of deportation, many people had no idea of the census’s purpose, why it matters or who should fill it out.

The reason the Census matters, of course, is that political representation and billions in federal funding at stake – something Census officials and community volunteers are still trying to drive home.

While the Republican Party’s big donors get fêted at bondage-themed strip clubs, its smaller donors have to make do with the number to a phone-sex hotline, graciously provided on the fake “Census” forms the GOP’s been mailing out in an effort to “dupe” people into contributing.

Where would we be without Republican family values?

The Republican National Committee sent a fundraising mail piece earlier this month with a return number that leads to a phone-sex line offering "live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl who will do anything you want for just $2.99 per minute."

At the bottom of a piece designed to resemble a census form, a toll-free number is listed next to the national party's address.

A voter in Minnesota received the mailer and called the number intending to complain about the attempt to raise money with a form that looks like a government document.

But the Minnesotan was instead directed to a second toll-free number that greets callers as "sexy guy" before offering them the chance to talk with "real local students, housewives and working girls from all over the country."

Last time we reported on this story, we explicitly reminded our readers:

Your official U.S. Census questionnaire will NEVER ask you to send money, pin numbers, or credit card information with your completed survey.

But since Republicans are involved in this scandal, I suppose we have to add something else to keep in mind when that Census form arrives in the mail:

Your official U.S. Census questionnaire will NEVER include the number to a phone-sex line.

The 2010 Census is providing what must be the most sophisticated real-time data on participation rates of any Census in history. Through the Census Bureau’s online portal, you can check your community’s participation rate and compare it to other states, other counties, and even nearby zip codes.

Every 1% of American households that complete their Census questionnaires and mail them back saves the American taxpayers about $85 million in Census costs, and every individual who completes the form provides about $1,400 in federal funding to his or her local community.

As of 11AM Wednesday morning, the top states in participation rate were the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Much of the Midwest, Plains States, and Mountain West were well above the national average for participation, while much of the South and Southwest lagged behind.

Visit http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/ to check your state or neighborhood.

Ever since Barack Obama won the presidency, right-wing paranoia about the Census has run rampant. But what few people realize is that Census officials themselves are equally paranoid about protecting the privacy of the information we provide. Protection begins with a 72-year seal on personal information in our Census responses:

Doris Turner, the partnership specialist for the Census Bureau serving several counties including Coweta, emphasized the confidential nature of Census form data in a recent meeting with the Coweta County Complete County[sic] Committee.

"It's sealed for 72 years," she said of the information. Census employees take an oath "that they will not divulge anybody's information," Turner said. The nondisclosure oath is for life.

The penalty for unlawful disclosure is a fine of up to $250,000 or imprisonment of up to five years, or both.

In other words, it won’t be until 2082 that historians or genealogists will be able to use Census data, for instance, to find out if I owned or rented my home this year.

In the mean time, all data released by the Census Bureau has had personally identifiable information (e.g. phone numbers, names, etc.) struck from it. But the Bureau doesn’t stop there -- it also goes to great lengths to make sure no one can reverse-engineer a way to identify anyone through the data they release. Even if it means altering entire data sets just to protect one person:

Suppose there is only one 65-year-old married woman attending college in North Dakota, and that her response was released by the Census Bureau. Then researchers would know everything else she told the agency, including, perhaps, her income and her parents' birthplace.

To protect the privacy of such unusual individuals and households, the government manipulates data, using several techniques that were described in a 2005 Census Bureau paper. Numbers are rounded, so incomes of $80,600 and $81,400 would both be recorded as $81,000. What statisticians refer to as "noise" is added to some ages—a year or two older or younger, perhaps.

Also, outlier values are averaged together, and that average is assigned to every one of those outliers. For instance, the top half-percent of earners would each be assigned the average income of that wealthy subgroup, so that, say, Warren Buffett's census questionnaire can't be identified. And people with especially unique characteristics might be moved across the country, in a kind of statistical witness protection program, so that entry for the North Dakotan woman might be changed to show her living in Alabama.

This additional “noise” is a source of constant irritation for some economists, sociologists, and other researchers using Census data in their research, but it shows just how far the Census Bureau goes protects the information it collects.

So the next time a Republican (like the commenters on the two articles cited above) tells you he’s too scared to fill out his Census form… tell him to take off the tin-foil hat.

Today is the first day that Census questionnaires begin arriving in mailboxes around the country. And since every uncounted individual costs his or her local government nearly $1,400 in lost federal funding, filling out that form is one of the simplest ways to help your community.

Additionally, for every 1 percent of American households that fill out and return their Census questionnaires by mail, taxpayers save nearly $85 million. With so much at stake in the process, top-level Census officials are pulling out all the stops to encourage Census participation, including (for the first time) a daily online report of participation rates around the country:

It also is hoping to motivate cities, counties and local communities to get involved. In 2000, both dense urban cities and sprawling rural areas -- from Alabama and California to Michigan and New York -- faced problems with an undercount, particularly in areas with larger shares of lower-income residents.

Beginning next week, the Census Bureau will publish daily real-time data on 2010 mail-back participation rates for the U.S. broken down by state, county, city and zip code. Ron Loveridge, president of the National League of Cities and the mayor of Riverside, Calif., is challenging mayors to see who can get the highest participation rate.

These data will give us the first clues about which states will struggle to earn their fair share of congressional representation and federal funding.

Last month, we alerted readers to a Republican-sponsored survey claiming to be an official Census questionnaire. Census officials worry the fake mailers will reduce participation in the actual Census, but now Republican officials have admitted a much more insidious goal: defrauding potential donors:

"Of course, duping people is the point. ... That's one of the reasons why it works so well,” said one Republican operative familiar with the program, who said it’s among the RNC’s most lucrative fundraising initiatives. “They will likely mail millions this year [with] incredible targeting.”

Any voter needs to remember two things if they receive one of these fake “Census” forms from the Republican Party:

1. Your official U.S. Census questionnaire will NEVER ask you to send money, pin numbers, or credit card information with your completed survey.

2. If the Republican-sponsored survey “duped” you (their word) into thinking you had to pay to be counted in the U.S. Census, and you sent a donation because of it, you have been defrauded. Contact the Republican Party immediately to demand a refund.

For more tips on avoiding scams and other fraudulent Census questionnaires, please visit this U.S. Census Bureau fact sheet.