The Problematic 2020 Census

The census was created with the intention that it would gather the necessary information about Americans for the government to get a general overview of the status of the country. According to an article published by The Atlantic, it’s never that big of a deal until recent issues have arisen. From the controversial “citizenship” question to the technological security threat, the census has drawn significant attention to itself.

In class, we briefly discussed the citizenship issue in a documentary. Due to the Trump administration’s anti-immigration mentality, many think that they want to add the citizenship question with negative intentions. For example, use information against noncitizen families or cities. The question is so controversial throughout the country that it was taken to court. Officials who are for the question claim that it’s important in order to enforce the Voting Rights Act. An official decision is still to be made, but nonetheless, this part of the 2020 census has caused many issues and has the potential to create more.

In addition to questionable additions, rumors of an online security threat has caused some panic. The article mentions that “Russian hackers managed to infiltrate registration systems...experts uncovered other holes across a broad range of systems…” Not only would this be a serious invasion of government information (if it were to happen), but could also sabotage the credibility of the census itself. This is also another reason not to have the citizenship question involved in the document.

Even though the 2020 census seems to have a lot of potential problems, it is necessary information for the government to have in order to get a sense of what the American population looks like and how it’s changed over the past ten years. Will the citizenship question be a brand new addition? Can the census process be made more secure? These are all important questions that we don’t yet have answers to, but hopefully will soon.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/census-2020-russia-citizenship/566384/