Bridge Michigan reminds us that the data, delayed for months, in part due to challenges associated with COVID-19, will help Michigan’s new independent redistricting commission redraw political boundaries for 2022 as the state loses a congressional seat because of stagnant population. Michigan will have 13 districts next year.
date changes have created angst for the political parties and its’ constituencies and placed states in difficult positions to legally and accurately complete their responsibilities. Some states have constitutional deadlines for redistricting and/or statutory filing deadlines for primaries.
Michigan’s redistricting commission will hold an open meeting at 1 PM on March 5th to discuss the conflict between when Census data will be available and constitutional deadlines. Complicating matters, voting rights advocates have said, is that this will be the first redistricting cycle since the Supreme Court eliminated the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act that required states with a history of racial discrimination to prove to the Department of Justice that their electoral maps weren’t drawn to dilute the power of voters of color. The shortened redistricting window leaves less time to challenge maps in the courts as discriminatory.
The 2020 Census has been a political tug-of-war, with the Trump administration seeking to restrict its ability to include undocumented immigrants and marginalized communities in general. Check out this “deep dive” into the story, and the importance, of the census.
The current system of determining electoral votes vary from state to state and “Battleground” states receive 7% more federal grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions. Lastly, these statutes have allowed five of our 45 Presidents to take office without having won the most popular votes nationwide.
On September 28, 2020, the Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced a target date of October 5, 2020, to conclude 2020 Census self-response and field data collection operations. The Commerce Department announced the speedup last month, two weeks after President Trump took a second swing at the problem of counting noncitizens, ordering the department to compile state-by-state estimates of unauthorized immigrants to exclude them from reapportionment calculations.
Learn about the new tool “Ballot Power” from the creators of Wave Michigan. Also find resources to get registered, vote from home, and encourage others to do the same.
The New York Times and Salon have reported that many states, as well as the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL), have expressed concern over the accuracy of census data that results from the use of the new privacy algorithm developed by the Census Bureau to protect individuals privacy.
The Census Bureau Counts the Population by collecting information from all households, including those residing in a group or unique living arrangements. The Census Bureau wants to make it easy for people to respond anytime and anywhere.
Khyla D. Craine was kind enough to share her expertise in this Question and Answer segment, moderated by Leslie Kamil.
Census 2020 begins in about a month. And that’s a big deal! Ensuring an accurate count of Michiganders is important because roughly $30 billion in federal funding for public safety, schools, housing, health care, and more, as well as one congressional seat, are at stake for Michigan.