Opinion: Will Republicans snub the 2010 census?
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The big bold lettering on those missives from the Census Bureau is clear enough: “U.S. Census Form Enclosed. YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.”
But if a poll released this week is any guide, some Americans want, as the Great Garbo said, to be left alone — especially if they’re Republicans. At least that’s one thing that can be gleaned from a new Zogby Interactive poll.
We don’t know whether folks knew about the dire “required by law” warning before they participated in the survey, so we can’t quite say scads of Republicans are preparing to defy federal law. But here’s what we do know.
Zogby found that 80% of Republican respondents said they would complete the 2010 Census form, 8% said they would not and 12% weren’t sure.
Almost all Democratic respondents, 95%, said they’d participate in the census, with 4% saying no and 2% saying “not sure.” In all three categories, independents fell in between Democrats and Republicans.
Lawmakers across the country, and L.A’s own mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, have urged constituents to fill out the form, noting that the decennial tally
... helps determine how to divvy up federal dollars, among other things. City officials say the undercount of Los Angeles residents in the 2000 census cost the city an estimated $206 million in federal funding for government programs.
On another front, respondents were asked to explain why they wouldn’t fill out the form. The most common reason was “I’m concerned about privacy.”
So what kind of intimate questions are being asked? Your name, for starters, along with age, date of birth, race and ethnicity. But income? No. Religious affiliation? Social Security number? No. Profession? Nope. The census does ask, however, whether you live in a house, apartment or mobile home. Clearly, folks won’t want to tell the feds about that.
The interactive survey, conducted March 12-15, had a sample size of 2,218 adults nationwide. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
-- Steve Padilla
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