Recent Decision to Compress Census Timeframes Poses Additional Risks to an Accurate Count

This correspondence is the fourth in a series of updates reporting on the Census Bureau’s (Bureau) 2020 Census activities and operations. This update includes information from GAO’s ongoing work on the status of 2020 Census operations and challenges, including those raised by COVID-19.

As part of a series of decisions to suspend, extend, and delay certain operations and extend data collection activities until October 31, the Department of Commerce requested statutory relief on the required dates for delivering census data to the President and states for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives and redistricting for elections. While legislation providing this relief was introduced in Congress, the legislation has not been enacted into law. On August 3, the Bureau announced it would accelerate completion of its data collection and data processing operations to deliver the apportionment counts by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2020. To do so, the Bureau announced it would end all data collection operations by September 30, reducing the amount of time the Bureau has to complete its nonresponse follow-up (NRFU) operation.