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Dorothy Copus Brush Have you mailed your census form? Have you fulfilled your duty as a citizen?
Call me smug, but I did. I'm one of the 2.4 million who answered
the questions and sent my census form on its way. That sounds
like a lot of responses, but it is only 2 percent of the 120
million forms mailed. When our forefathers wrote the law that a
census should be held every 10 years the reason for such a count
was to determine each state's representation in Congress. In
1790 this newly founded country had a small population. As the
nation expanded the population exploded and the task of census
taking became increasingly more complex. The Census Bureau started the process this
year with a mistake. All the street numbers were wrong because
either a one or a four preceded the correct address. Fortunately,
the post office sorts mail according to the bar code on the envelope
so the forms were delivered. When there is a goof, the finger pointing
starts and the census people blame the printing company in Wisconsin.
I wonder if they will be paid the full $5.9 million their contract
reads. The officials at the bureau were worried enough that they
consulted cognitive psychologists who deal in direct-mail techniques
and were assured the error wouldn't be noticed. That theory proved
untrue because the media learned about the mix-up and alerted
the public. So the post office came through, and the official
letter from the census people arrived, but several days later
a second communication was delivered. The first letter explained
the form was coming but it contained a reply envelope. Why was
it there? There was no explanation in English. If you knew the
Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese or Tagalog languages, you
would have known why. On the back of the reply envelope was an
explanation in all those languages as to how they could get a
census form in their language. There was a toll-free number for the Census
Bureau listed, and on the very first day people received their
first letter 636,000 calls jammed the lines. The 3,000 phone
operators were overwhelmed, and now there are 9,000 operators
on hand to answer all sorts of questions/complaints. I considered myself lucky that I was in one
of the 1 million homes that received the short form. I had forgotten
there were two different forms, and mine was so simple I wondered
just what good it would do. It asked name, sex, age, phone number,
race, ethnicity, the number of people living at the address and
if the residence is owned or rented. That was followed by six
pages for the same information on each person living at that
address. For those 20 million unfortunates who received
the long form, there are 53 questions much more involved with
income, occupation, how you get to work, home heating costs and
on and on. No matter how irritated the census makes you
just remember Tennessee could lose more than $16 million over
the next 10 years if the state population is undercounted. Does
the census make sense? When that many cents are at stake I would
say yes! |