Census workers find counting no easy task

Mission Impossible.

This year it has been more than the title of a popular movie or long-running TV series, say those tasked with collecting data for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Census enumerators have dealt with shifting counting deadlines, uncooperative respondents, a revolving door of supervisors, spotty cell phone service, unmarked addresses and hazardous roadway conditions – all while navigating a once-in-a-century pandemic.

“Every enumerator I talked to agreed in 10 years there would have to be major changes in the way a census is conducted organizationally and in terms of safety,” census worker Sally Riggers, a Samish Island resident who worked the area between Marysville and Bellingham, told the Weekly News.

It was not supposed to be this way.

In anticipation of the 2020 Census, bureau director Steve Dillingham last year announced new measures designed to locate and identify all addresses in the U.S., reflecting every type of housing unit, including tents, homeless shelters and itinerant camps.

Even persons living beneath highway overpasses would be counted.

“We are highly confident,” Dillingham said, “that we are on track to achieve a complete and accurate census. We have made many improvements and innovations over the past decade to prepare for the 2020 Census.”

Dillingham cited the use of advanced information technologies to protect data confidentiality and reduce cybersecurity risks in support of new options for responding – such as by phone or internet – beyond traditional paper forms.

He also outlined plans to recruit bureau partners to help reach hard to count populations and provide language assistance.

Additionally, census workers received both in-person and on-line training prior to entering the field.

But Riggers said those strategies did not necessarily pan out on the ground. The training, for instance, did not address some situations that arose.

“Due to the lack of training,” said Riggers, “we had to figure out ways to complete the task – like contacting housing authorities and neighbors, looking up phone numbers and using resources not otherwise suggested.”

It was falsely assumed that cell towers would cover the entire area of a county.

“Enumerators often had to leave an area just to get cell service back to enter data,” Riggers said.

Organization and safety were often lacking, she said.

“Those were the two major issues we all saw as being the most negative and with the most impact,” she said.

“Supervisors came and went,” said Riggers. “The best were terminated. The remaining were busy, hard to reach and not particularly helpful and my supervisor kept changing.

“The working style of each supervisor,” she stressed, “was very different.”

Riggers found herself assigned to walk narrow roadways – like Chuckanut Drive – with vehicles sometimes breezing by at 40-50 mph.

“There was nowhere to get out and look for addresses,” she said, “and no way to pull over or drive slowly to spot addresses on displayed blue signs or on properties.”

On that score, she said, Skagit County was better than most.

“Other counties,” said Riggers, “did not have good address markings.”

Gated communities with limited or no access posed challenges, too.

“There would be nobody around to ask about questionable addresses, especially in rural areas,” Riggers said.

“I got creative in locating addresses,” she added. “I contacted the Swinomish Tribe offices and went to the post office to check if addresses were even on their rosters.”

Then there was COVID-19 and a roiling political climate, with some respondents insisting the virus was a hoax and refusing to participate in the census. A few of those reinforced the point by displaying menacing dogs, Riggers said. Others, she said, simply threw census workers off their property.

Riggers said census workers were required to wear masks and observe stringent safety protocols. Respondents were not, leading to personal health concerns on the part of enumerators.

To its credit, the Census Bureau re-engineered field operations to meet conditions unique to 2020 while delivering taxpayer savings.

But the bureau’s decision in August to end all counting efforts for the census on Sept. 30, a month sooner than previously announced, led to additional anxiety in the field. Critics argued the move would result in an undercount of persons likely to vote Democratic and thus impact congressional reapportionment.

In response, a federal judge last week ordered census counting to continue through Oct. 31, a ruling immediately appealed by the Trump Administration, which hopes to receive collected data by year’s end.

The back-and-forth over the counting deadline is symbolic of what Riggers and others identify as woes within the system.

“Most enumerators I talked to,” she said, “agreed that the census this year was an experience in futility.”