2020 Census

Dogged by the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration's interference with the census schedule, the latest expected release date — six months past the March 31 legal deadline — could throw upcoming elections into chaos in states facing tight redistricting deadlines for Congress, as well as state and local offices.

Disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic and last-minute changes by the Trump administration, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Wednesday that the release of the first results of the 2020 census will likely be delayed by four months. The latest state population counts used to determine each state's share of votes in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College for the next decade are now expected by April 30.

President Biden's nominee for overseeing the U.S. Census Bureau, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, said she intends to depoliticize the 2020 census and listen to experts at a federal agency that had been caught in a partisan firestorm during the Trump administration.

The Trump-appointed director of the U.S. Census Bureau is stepping down close to a week after whistleblower complaints about his role in attempting to rush out an incomplete data report about noncitizens became public.

The U.S. Census Bureau has halted all work on President Trump's directive to produce a state-by-state count of unauthorized immigrants that would have been used to alter a key set of census numbers, NPR has learned.

Saddled with delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic and last-minute changes by the Trump administration, the first set of 2020 census results will not be ready for release by Thursday's year-end deadline for numbers that determine representation in Congress and the Electoral College for the next decade.

The number of 2020 census records requiring quality checks because of irregularities has ballooned into the millions. That may stop Trump from getting control of a key count before leaving office.

Justices expressed doubts about a plan to cut undocumented immigrants from a key census count — one that would exclude them for purposes of drawing new congressional districts.

The justices will hear oral arguments Nov. 30, increasing the potential for Trump to try to omit unauthorized immigrants from the census numbers used to reallocate House seats during his current term.

The Trump administration asked, and the Supreme Court allowed, for a suspension to a lower court order that extends the census schedule. The move sharpens the threat of an incomplete count.