A misplaced naval ship in California. Overlooked college students in New York City. Missed inmates in Texas.
These are some of the reasons why the two most populous states and the largest city in the U.S. filed last-minute requests for corrections to their 2020 census figures right before the deadline at the end of last month. California, Texas and New York City were joined by a dozen and a half other stragglers, including Illinois and New Orleans, that made down-to-the-deadline appeals over the numbers that help determine political power and the annual distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal funding.
In total, nearly 200 requests for corrections were filed by local, state and tribal governments through two programs started by the U.S. Census Bureau to give governments opportunities to have their population totals reviewed and corrected if need be.
If successful, any corrections will be applied only to future population estimates used for the rest of the decade in determining federal funding. They can’t be used to change how many congressional seats each state was allotted during the apportionment process, nor for the data used for redrawing political districts. That’s too bad for some cities and states — not to mention the two major political parties fighting over every foot of territory in a closely divided nation.
BOSTON CHALLENGES ITS 2020 CENSUS DATA
If the Democratic-leaning state of New York had counted 89 more residents — the equivalent of a small apartment building’s tenants in New York City — during the 2020 census, it wouldn’t have lost a congressional seat. Among Republican-controlled states, Texas had been expected to gain three additional congressional seats instead of the two it gained after the 2020 census.
In one of the most unusual reasons given for a correction request, sailors on an aircraft carrier in Southern California may have been assigned to the wrong city’s population because of the location of the ship’s slip.
Here’s a look at some…
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