Let the challenges begin! Time for contesting census is here

Detroit’s mayor believes tens of thousands of residents in the majority-Black city were missed in the 2020 census. Somerton, Arizona, leaders are incredulous the Census Bureau said they lost residents during a decade when the overwhelmingly Hispanic community grew enough to warrant a new high school.

And college towns across the U.S. believe they were undercounted as students fled campuses shuttered by the coronavirus.

The time for communities with a beef about how they were counted in the 2020 census has arrived.

At the start of the new year, the U.S. Census Bureau began accepting challenges from states, counties, cities and tribal nations about one of the most difficult counts in recent memory, due to the pandemic, political interference from the Trump administration, hurricanes and wildfires.

The scope for making challenges through the Count Question Resolution program is narrow, and few local governments got their numbers changed after the 2010 census. But the bureau has made adjustments when past errors were revealed.

Unprecedented hurdles in 2020 may heighten the need for tweaks this time around. Many leaders worry inaccurate figures could cost their jurisdictions their share of the $1.5 trillion the federal government distributes annually based on census numbers.

Along with concerns about undercounted racial and ethnic groups and college students, some small towns believe a new privacy method the Census Bureau used for the first time skewed their numbers. And officials in areas with large institutions like prisons or military barracks worry pandemic lockdowns left out many inmates or service members.

The census challenges won’t change the number of congressional seats each state gets, or the numbers used for redrawing political districts. Those were released in August so the redrawing of district lines could be completed in time for upcoming elections.

At this point, it’s hard to say how many governments will appeal through the program, which has been around since 1990. As of this week, the Census Bureau hadn’t made public any applications. But states, cities, counties and tribal nations have through June 2023 to submit them.

State College, Pennsylvania, home to tens of thousands of students at Penn State University, plans to file a challenge this winter because officials believe 4,000-5,800 people were missed in the community of more than 40,500 residents, said Douglas Shontz, a borough spokesman.