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Your civic duty: Last day to be counted in the 2020 Census

Here’s some Thursday civic duty for you.

Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling to allow the Trump administration to cut collection short, Thursday, October 15th is the final day to participate in the 2020 Census, a key government effort every ten years to count its citizenry and determine congressional reapportionment.

If you haven’t participated yet, go to my2020census.gov, click start and type in the 12-digit alphanumeric code sent you this spring and possibly still in a pile in your kitchen. You can also enter the address where you lived as of April, 2020 to look up your code. You will then be asked a series of questions, and can choose one of 13 languages. Questions include how many people live in your household, their name, age, gender (only male or female options) and race (a lot of options, including the option for multi-racial people to check more than one box). There’s also a question about if you own your home (with or without a mortgage) or rent.

The Census Bureau, based on historical data, predicted between 14% and 29% of Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Central District area residents would not to respond to the online questions and require an in-person count. Census workers were dispatched to try to collect some of that information but given social distancing restrictions and the scale of the project, it’s likely they missed you.

In addition to reapportionment, redistricting is also driven by census numbers and countless federal programs including roads, education, housing, and health funding, depend on the data.

CHS wrote more about the process and the importance of the census here in April.

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