Skip to main content

Census

Washington, DC – The League of Women Voters president Chris Carson issued the following statement in response to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ decision to include a question pertaining to citizenship in the 2020 Census

The League joined 168 national, state and local organizations in urging the President to nominate a highly qualified and widely respected professional to serve as the next Director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

The League sent comments to the Census Bureau regarding the decision to continue using the “usual residence” rule. The rule counts incarcerated citizens at their prison addresses rather than their home addresses.

Evenwel v. Abbott, a case out of Texas, has the potential to upset the criteria for drawing state and local legislative districts so that they would be determined by the total number of voters instead of total population. The League submitted an amicus brief in Evenwel that supports the current practice of drawing district lines.

The League joined national civil rights, voting rights, labor and criminal justice organizations in submitting comments to the Census Bureau asking that incarcerated persons be counted at their home address, rather than the prison facility they occupy on census day. The League believes that if the Census Bureau modified its residence rule with respect to incarcerated persons, all states and localities will have the opportunity to more accurately and equitably reflect the incarcerated population in their redistricting plans.