Forceful census takers? Anyone else being bagered?

[PineappleMama]

It's not that they are asking... it's that they are demanding and using specifically THIS law to do it.

THIS law allows for a Head Count ONLY... and specifically for the purpose of determining Rep #s.

That is what that law entitles them to do/ask... nothing else.

Or, at least that's what it allowed before they started in with altering it... I don't think we outta be tweaking all willy nilly with the Constitution... evidently I'm in a small minority on that.

Sidenote being that in this country we also have the right to remain silent and quite specifically NOT answer questions from those in authority whether we are guilty of a crime or lily white innocent.

Throw in that the CB has blatantly misused the information gathered in the past... why should we trust them with anything more than a head count?

 

[geepy]

The best thing I ever did was not answer the door and have the land line phone disconnected. I have seven dogs that say you will never make it to my front door and a sign that says so.

 

[The Chicken Lady]

They just mailed us our survey, we filled it out, and mailed it back. There hasn't been any door-to-door stuff at our house...maybe it depends on where one lives?

 

[PineappleMama]

Well, there's the Census, which I don't mind (particularly the # bit) even if they DO already have all that info on us since we're law abiding, tax paying citizens...

Then there's the American Community Survey, which evidently isn't only every 10 years, that is 27 pages of questions concerning your race, income, marital status and so on... and folks selected for that are basically drafted... supposedly random selection... that's the one we got this week that I will NOT be filling out because I don't think my race, marital status, etc should have any bearing on whether or not I get a congressman to represent me in Washington.

I was snooping to find info on Prosecution, just to be prepared... fact: IF they prosecute (which is rare) then the MOST that can happen is a $100 fine for refusing (in Delaware a judge ruled that as per question) and if you purposely lie on it then $500.

But, in my hunt I also found an article written back in March... others were from previous years... that I posted a bit back in an edited post... but here it is again in case people didn't want to read my LONG-winded rambles...

http://www.dailytribune.net/articles/2010/03/19/news/01.txt
Friday, March 19, 2010... this is a quote from the article, see the link for the whole thing....

Census Bureau Public Affairs Specialist Samantha O'Neil told the Tribune. "We don't actually collect fines or attempt to enforce this law. There's no prosecution," O'Neil said. "This is not a method we use to get people to return the forms. We hope people will return them. For every one percent increase in the mail response rate, we save $85 million," she said.

They prefer to use guilt (maybe big brother is really a mother in law?) to get people to send all that info in... which is fine for folks who totally trust the security of the mailbox, the post, the oaths taken by the CB workers, that the info will only be used for the purpose stated (not to hunt down anyone of specific race as HAS been done in the past) and that it in no way deviates from the Constitution... but for those that aren't comfortable for whatever reason in sending that info THEY DO NOT HAVE TO FEAR FINES OR JAILTIME... a direct contradiction to the bold faced printed threat on the envelope, and the threats issued verbally by CB workers.

Technically they have the law on their side and could prosecute, thus it is your choice if you choose to resist. I would love to see it put in writing that all but occupant number (again because that's the POINT) is voluntary, but until then it is your choice and you must accept the consequences should you choose to resist your government.

 

[DuckLady]

Quote:
We got a visit because previous to us buying this house, it was a rental with renters having PO boxes. We were the first occupants to put a mailbox on the road and they didn't know we were here.

Other than that the people getting visits are mostly the ones who don't send their censuses (censi?

) back in.

 

[sourland]

I have a friend (WW2 veteran) who filled out the form but put "American" in the racial profiling section. He has had several visits from the census takers and chooses his ethnicity based upon theirs. So far this crotchety old white guy has been Latin American, African American, Puerto Rican, and Indian. His reasoning, "I fought in a war to guarantee that this kind of s*** wouldn't be tolerated." So far no one has disagreed with him; yet, still they show up at his door. I don't know how this is going to end. I do know that he will not allow himself to be categorized.

 

[jomercer]

I'm working for the census this year. Aside from the expected bureaucratic screwups (and realize that this is a HUGE undertaking in a short time period), repeat visits are sometimes a confirmation of information from a statistically significant number of selected households. Also, just getting a count of people in the house with no other info such as names and ages can trigger a repeat (and repeat and repeat ) visit. In some cases I had to visit a home as many as ten times before I was allowed to go to a neighbor to try to get some info. Now wouldn't you want to give the correct information about yourelf and your family rather than a gossipy neighbor who could be saying things that aren't quite accurate?

People who don't participate could be thought of as selfish TAKERS--they TAKE advantage of the good roads and water/sewer and schools and daycare and senior housing and convenient shopping, but don't want to GIVE of themselves to ensure that private and public planners have the info they need to develop these ameneties where they're needed.

The decennial census is a provision of the U.S. Consitutution. The legal basis for the census is to establish the number of representatives in Congress for your area. If you don't get counted, you could lose a representative and someone else could benefit from that vote that could tip the balance in their favor rather than yours.

You're better off just being patient and answering all the questions. It's the shortest census since the 1800's, and most of the info could be found on the Web, so it's not as if you're giving away any family secrets. But census can't release your personal informaiton anyway--it's reported as an aggregate, such as "X number of poeple betweeen the ages of 5 and 12 live in this zip code").

Like any other enterprise, there are some bad apples in the bunch. Yes, please call to report problems, but expect the census staffer on the other end of the line to ask to fill out a form for you over the phone--even if you did send yours in. They just want to be as sure as possible that no one gets missed. They'll go through to figure out the duplicates later.

P.S. We're not allowed to ask to come in, and except in very unusual circumstances, are to conduct the interview outside the residence. And Congress decides the questions to be asked--head count is only a part of it, and not the only "legal" thing you're required to answer.

P.P.S.--It's a waste of taxpayer money to make the census worker come back and back and back, too. Many of the people who trained with me had no job at all; and if they coudn't get a good enough ratio of hours worked per questionnaire completed, they lost their census job--a temporary, no-fringe-benefits, no overtime, drive-your-own-vehicle, and no-credit-toward-Federal-service proposition.

 

[RabbitMage]

Quote:

 

[jomercer]

Quote:
I know I felt like putting that my husband and I were white but that our biological kids were black. Let them ponder that for awhile. I guess I didn't see where it mattered what race we were. I think income levels would be of more importance so that more money could be sent to areas that are dirt poor vs. affluent areas.

So much misinformaiton about the census. Here are the basic questions:

did you live here on April 1? If not, where? was someone else living here on April 1 or was it vacant?
is this the usual home or a vacation/second home?
How many poeple live and sleep here most of the time?
Names, relationship to the informant, sex, ages, dates of birth, Hispanic?, race
Rent, own w/wo mortgage, pay no rent
phone number

People can choose one or any other combination of HIspanic origins and races. People I encountered were happy to declare the mixed heritages of their families. I didn't get any clowns saying "human' race nor did I get any Martians

.

It was interesting in some cases that the parents might declare race A and B for one and B and C for the other, they might choose only A as their kids' race. We have to write what people say. And most "white" (the choice on the form) people declared themselves "Caucasion."

The most humorous question for many was the sex--the older ladies especially thought that was funny. Some poeple tried the "can't you tell?" route with sex and race--I just responded it was not my place to try to guess what they wanted to be.

I wish we didn't have to worry about race, either, but face it--we have to for now for a lot of reasons, including particular education and health care needs.

No one got torqued about answering whether they rented or owned w/wo a mortgage or lived there for free.

The area of most resistance was getting poeple's phone numbers, but even that was not common.

A number of people were surprised at the brevity of the questionnaire and apologized for being so elusive or aggresive.

I encouraged people to call me at home to do the questions on the phone...that eworked pretty well, and I got several calls weeks after I had worked the area and it had been assigned to someone else to finish up.

Some people just seem to want to be angry, hateful or abusive under any circumstances--I could have been passing out $100 bills and not made a difference for some. But fortunately most everyone was pleasant and cooperative. I'm thankful for that during those 2+ weeks when the heat index was over 100.

The decennial census has been going on since 1790, giving us wonderful resources to track down our families'histories. The less information gathered might leave future generations with fewer geneological gems to discover.

 

[jomercer]

Quote:
The backlog is a big part of the problem, I believe--there's just soooo much to do in a short time period.

By law, individually identifiable Census information is not made available to the public for about 74 years after it is gathered. I couldn't care less were some stranger to learn in 2088 that I lived in a mortgaged home in Maryland in 2010. But it would be really neat if a great-great-great granddaughter could find that for her geneology project should our family reocords be lost.