Our government tells us the head count of citizens (census) is cost effective, super efficient, and amazingly accurate. Think of the government running health care like this . . .

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

CNSNews.com
Counting Once, Counting Twice: U.S. Census Sending Millions of Americans A Second Form

Friday, April 02, 2010

By
Susan Jones, Senior Editor

(CNSNews.com) –
About 40 million “replacement” Census questionnaires are being sent
nationwide to households in areas with low mail return rates, even if
those households already have returned the first form they received,
Census officials announced on Thursday.

And just days after completing their paid training, hundreds of Census
enumerators in Northern Virginia were abruptly laid off without
explanation on Thursday.

Census officials said mailing out a second form is designed to increase
census mail participation, get a better headcount for the states, and
save taxpayers the cost of sending out census takers to collect
information.

The Census Bureau estimates that mailing a second questionnaire “in
targeted areas” could save more than $500 million and raise the
participation rate by 7 to 10 percentage points.

But what about double counting?
“[P]eople who have completed and returned their questionnaires need not fill out the replacement Census form,” said a news release issued
Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau's Charlotte region. "You should only
complete and return one census form," the release said. “Extra census
forms should be discarded.”

William W. Hatcher, a regional director for the U.S. Census Bureau,
said both the original forms and the replacement forms are bar-coded
“to ensure that people are counted only once and in the right place.”

Many Virginia households are among those receiving a second Census
form. The 10-question census forms were mailed to 3.32 million Virginia
households in mid-March, and as of April 1, 57 percent of them had been
returned, the Charlotte Regional Census Center said.

“The replacement questionnaire is a safety net and a wise investment,”
Hatcher said. “It reminds people who have not mailed back their
questionnaires to send it in now.”

Census workers laid off on ‘Census Day’

April 1 was Census Day – a day marked by events to remind people to
return their census questionnaires. But some Census workers were
abruptly dismissed from their part-time jobs on Census Day with no
explanation.

In Northern Virginia, hundreds of Census workers were told on Thursday
to turn in all materials, including partially completed enumeration
assignments, because the Group Quarters Enumeration project was being
canceled.

“What about enumerating the dorms, jails, nursing homes, etc., that we
were supposed to do?” asked one frustrated Census enumerator who was
among those laid off Thursday.

The enumerator, who asked that her name not be used, noted that the
government invested time and money in hiring hundreds of enumerators,
fingerprinting them, and paying them $20 an hour and 50 cents a mile to
attend three days of training last week.

Some of those same enumerators spent Tuesday night seeking out and
counting homeless people in the Virginia suburbs. But that's where the
assignments ended.

The enumerator called it a case of Census “dysfunction, wastefulness, and ineptitude.”