Numbers Do Count

I hope each of you reading this have already responded to the census questionnaire that you got months ago. Today I will spend three hours being trained to be an enumerator for the 2020 US census, one of over 500,000 of us willing to go door to door in order to have the numbers as accurate as possible. This job will probably be no more than eight weeks duration, if that, because of a case brought against the August 2020 Census Replan. This Replan would shorten the census data collection and processing timelines from the eight months set forth in the April 13, 2020 COVID-19 Plan to four months. Even I am, now a soon-to-be employee of the US 2020 Census, have to agree with the plaintiffs in this case that the Replan's shortened timelines will likely unlawfully harm the accuracy of crucial census data. In addition, I have not seen anything that would make me believe that shortening the data collection period makes legitimate sense. If slightly better than 60% of Americans have responded already, that still leaves nearly 40% that haven't. That's a lot of people! I am not taking on this job because I need the money. I'm doing it because I think having accurate, or as close to accurate, figures to work with before the next census in ten years is best for our country. This is going to be an interesting experience, especially because I live in a mostly rural county. Wish me well. And please also hope that we enumerators can really do our jobs rather than have our time on the job unduly shortened.