Vanity: What are the pros and cons of filling out the Census?

9/1/20 | me

[spacejunkie2001]

I need FR's professional input: do I fill out the census? They've been banging down my door. I've ignored it in the past and they left me alone.

What's anyone's take on it

[CIB-173RDABN]

Fill out the census.

[glasseye]

I live in California.
California is like cancer/herpes...fatal & easily spread.
Less cancer = best cancer.
That’s my answer....

[Dilbert San Diego]

I don’t see why one would not respond to the census.

I know some here have sometimes said they got a “long form” which asked intrusive questions. And some had objections to answering such questions.

The form I got was very short and asked simply for names of people living here.

I have no objection to that. It’s in the constitution that a census will be taken for apportionment purposes. Answer the basic questions only if you have gotten a “long form” which asks for private information unrelated to the enumeration needed for congressional apportionment.

[Vermont Lt]

The Pros....

It a legal obligation.

[kara37]

Pros, you will be counted for congressional seats and more money for the state.

Cons, you will be counted for congressional seats and more money for the state.

I say if you are a red state...yes, blue state...no.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I wait until the dude shows up. They hire locals who are in sync with our attitudes and will take “2 adult citizens and that’s all” for an answer.

[waynesa98]

most of the ? are voluntary. answer the number of people, age, screw around with ethnicity. answer citizenship and think about country of origin, if off the boat. Set income to 0. religion to pastfarian. if sexual orientation is asked, write in gay Venus purple unicorns.

[spacejunkie2001]

I get where you’re going on that but if I put things like gay, or a different income level, etc., how would that affect my district?

[CapnJack]

If they leave one at the door, enter the number of occupants in the home only and mail it.

[Leaning Right]

Here’s my take. If you live in a Red area where your input would increase the number of GOP members in Congress, by all means fill out the census.

But otherwise, feel free to run the Betty White routine.

https://youtu.be/fbI1eJ_zAB8

[SamAdams76]

Here’s my take. If you live in a Red area where your input would increase the number of GOP members in Congress, by all means fill out the census.

In other words, let the blue states remain blue?

So that's what you are all about? Leaning Left, actually?

[captain_dave]

Democrats should not fill out the census, as a protest over the racist questions, blah, blah, blah....

[workerbee]

I finally did it online and was surprised it wasn’t too bad.

Having gotten that atrocious (and almost certainly unconstitutional) “Community Survey” in the past (which I deep-sixed), I was glad to see the questions on the census were fairly benign. How many living in your house, names, ages. Yes, they do ask about race. I marked “White” but did not go beyond that even though they wanted you to specify “what kind of White” (German, Irish, Scandinavian, etc).

[LongWayHome]

I got the long-form in an off-year and did not fill it out. The census person came to my house over & over again. I just ignored him.

I did fill out the non-invasive short form in 2020.

[chrisinoc]

Fines start at $100 for not doing the census questionnaire.

Plus the census enumerator can get a proxy to do your questionnaire, which includes a neighbor, landlord or apartment manager, mail carrier, etc.

The Census is most interested in number of people in the household. You can refuse or state don’t know on all other questions.

[Adder]

Answering in a blue state increases population and their blue representation.
Has nothing to do with affiliation.

[Xenodamus]

I put “American” for race.

[ConservativeInPA]

They banged at my door two weeks ago. A stupid negro census taker was there to ask me questions. The questions were no big deal, although the census taker was fat, ugly, stupid and from the ghetto. I didn't give her too hard of a time. When it came time to the ethnic questions I first told her I was African American. She literally wasn't looking at me and started entering it into her tablet. I said, "take a look, I'm white." No reaction. She had a list of questions that was prompted on the tablet. The trigger for white ended up in a bunch of ancestry questions, are you of such and such origin: English, Scot, Italian, German and so on. I told her the truth, 50% Scot, 50% Finnish, with a little English mixed in. There was no option for Finnish, that confused her. I was more than toying with her by this time. I told her, if there was no option for Finnish, then put me down for Native American since my family has been her since the 1600's. She did so.

I don't suffer fools and ignorant people. It's their damn fault that they don't speak the American language and are not educated. She was a real stupid pig. What a waste of life.

[AbnSarge]

From my house of 3,
- Celtic-North Atlantic Islander
- Native American
- Irish/Celtic