Census Data

A long time ago, likely when I was complaining about how generally every candidate I vote for in an election loses, consoled me a bit by suggesting that I think of representatives from other areas as representing me. That is, I still have some representation at the state and national level, even if those representatives aren’t the ones assigned to my geographic area. I thought that it was a nifty way of thinking about things.

Now, next year, as with all years that are multiples of 10, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its census. One of the main reasons for it is to allocate seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And, in fact, there tend to be news articles and government representatives urging in the months leading up the census, telling everyone how important it is to be counted. You see, that way, you ensure that you get representation in the government.

But, the representatives from Massachusetts don’t represent me. I’m better represented by other states. So, it almost feels like the correct “strategy”, if one wants to call it that, would be to refuse to answer the census, or even try to lie on it to inflate the population count of some other state. If I could help Massachusetts lose a rep, and assign it somewhere that’s more likely to elect someone with policies I agree with more, it almost feels like I have a moral obligation to do so. Not quite, since it’d be lying and all, but just like I should vote for someone I agree with more, even though I know the person won’t get elected and my vote won’t make a difference, it almost seems I should try to get representation to people I agree with more, even though the population of my family is unlikely to make a difference.

As I did a little Googling, I found that as of right now, the penalty for failing to respond to the census is $100, and the penalty for giving false information is $500. (Title 13, Section 221) No jail time. And of course, those penalties are rarely enforced. And even if they were, it might be reasonable to think of them as a kind of “tax” or “campaign contribution” to help represent me better at the federal level. Although there’s apparently a harsher penalty for “any suggestion, advice, information or assistance of any kind, with the intent or purpose of causing an inaccurate enumeration of population” of $1000 and up to a year of jail time. (Title 13, Section 222) I’m not quite sure where the line is. And of course, if there were an organized widespread grassroots effort to manipulate census data more, then the laws could be changed to be even stricter.

Also while looking around, there appears to be more of an effort to refuse to answer any questions beyond “how many people are in the household” for privacy reasons, as the number of people is the only part of the census required by the Constitution. And in the past, despite claims of and laws for privacy protection for the data, census data was used for Bad Things like the rounding up of Japanese-Americans during WWII.

In the end, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’ll probably end up answering the number of people question, even though it’s not in my best interest, to comply with the Constitution, since it does make a bit of sense. But on the other hand, it seems strange that I’m compelled to do something that I see as being not in my best interest. And there’s definitely some concern I have over how much data about my family the government should really have.

Luckily, I’ve got quite a few months to mull things over.