Coming To Our Census: How Social Statistics Underpin Our Democracy (And Republic)

The 2020 Census provides the opportunity to reflect on the key role statisticians, demographers, and other social scientists play in safeguarding American democracy. Democracy requires numbers for its proper functioning, and there is now a large statistical infrastructure of which the constitutionally mandated census is the keystone. Mistrust of the government is a major obstacle for the census, potentially affecting both accuracy and completeness. The mistrust is stimulated by fears of individual or household census data being willingly or inadvertently shared with other government agencies (data privacy issues) or even foreign actors (hacking). As two 2019 Supreme Court decisions in juxtaposition suggest, no checks or balances protect the integrity of the census. The professional integrity of statisticians is the best defense of the census.