Census workers complaints prompt congressman's look into 'operational nightmare'
Census takers in the Schaumburg area say technical glitches are preventing them from doing their jobs and causing an “operational nightmare,” U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi contends in a letter to federal officials.
Multiple workers have told the Schaumburg Democrat that the software used by the government distributes cases indiscriminately, “giving some workers 100 cases per day and some no cases,” Krishnamoorthi wrote Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham on Wednesday. “Ensuring that every American is represented in the 2020 Census is crucial.”
U.S. Census Bureau Public Information Officer Julie Iriondo said the agency is looking into the issues raised by the congressman.
The workers, also called enumerators, follow up with households that have not completed the census. They told Krishnamoorthi software malfunctions sometimes halt operations for days but senior managers ignored their complaints.
“Census workers in my district have also reported that the enumerator process was inefficient and ‘not a very well-thought-out operation,'” Krishnamoorthi told Dillingham. “The software would delete assigned cases nightly and redistribute them, so that a new enumerator might knock on a door that had already been approached by another census worker a day earlier.”
Some workers based at the Schaumburg census office wondered if the mishaps could be a “deliberate attempt” to undermine the census because senior officials had not responded to their concerns, Krishnamoorthi said.
The 2020 Census has been fraught with political fights over whether to include a citizenship question and over extending the deadline because of the pandemic. A federal judge recently ruled the process could stretch through Oct. 31, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced this week the census will end on Monday.
“I urge you not to take further adverse actions to slow the delivery of an accurate 2020 Census,” Krishnamoorthi wrote Dillingham, asking for a response to the workers' accusations on Friday.
Census data shows that 99.4% of Illinois households were counted as of Wednesday compared to the national total of 98.9%.
Of the state's total, 71% of households completed census reports independently so far and 28.4% required prompting from a census taker. In the 2010 Census, self-reporting was 70.5% in Illinois.
Self-reporting by residents increased in the suburbs from the 2010 Census. In Cook County, 66.8% of households completed the census without assistance compared to 66.1% in 2010. Similar increases in self-reporting results included: DuPage County — 80.5% this year and 77.3% in 2010; Kane County — 77.2% this year and 75.2% in 2010; Lake County — 76.6% this year and 75.5% in 2010; McHenry County — 82% this year and 77.8% in 2010; and Will County — 78.3% this year and 76.9% in 2010.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said that an undercount of just 1% in the census could mean losing $195 million in federal funds.
• Daily Herald wire services contributed to this report.