[EL] Impact on the census

[Levitt, Justin]

The paper Rick flags below makes three assumptions – two acknowledged and one unacknowledged.  First, it assumes that the citizenship question affects only households with at least one noncitizen, despite fears in the broader community.  Second, it assumes that response in 2020 will be no worse than response in 2010, despite the change in climate.  Third (this is the unacknowledged one), it assumes that the impact of a question on the 10-question enumeration delivered to every household in the country is no more salient than the impact of a question on a 70-question survey delivered to a tiny fraction of the country each month.

If any of those assumptions doesn’t hold, the impact will be worse.  If several of those assumptions don’t hold, that impact will be compounded.

Oh, and the paper tallies its final results in terms of household response.  If the households of those who don’t answer the census are larger than those who do, the error rate of the total count will be larger still.

None of that is a critique of the paper.  It’s just that there’s plenty of reason to think that these are still low-ball estimates of damage.  Don’t be surprised when the oil spill<https://www.britannica.com/event/Deepwater-Horizon-oil-spill> is a lot bigger than the initial estimates.

Justin

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2019 9:21 PM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/23/19

New Estimate from Census Department Researchers Forthcoming in Peer Reviewed Journal Finds Citizenship Question Could Depress Response Rate by 8 Percent in Households That May Have Noncitizens<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fp%3d105741&c=E,1,8R6RtcVVlv13r6DI0CzsAgz98xhdi6TiQCxhF_nQ7UhwRM90zAXlAkmJnPwv2CfjgCEeHYOeFIUvdQ-1z-gfpYqffJ_EpEfyrbdRiEg77ie-Cw,,&typo=1>
Posted on June 23, 2019 9:15 pm<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fp%3d105741&c=E,1,uV-ltDXc0GyNguK3VMqyayOF8jSEyM2gun3TjHlz5ST0opKX7u-pbWVowcNw3gJcZQIIMQ2pOGWW7MYMZJSfnoxRsphOdsGhLbAsdZQhPlzV7fvB1h0,&typo=1> by Rick Hasen<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fauthor%3d3&c=E,1,HnXH0N8WWwq6lw4NWloH6sw_3KcrptEbEliK2G-EpG2eQ0lGnx7ML6t1ZMqiR245on9EI-J34KyhVQTAWbhcs-CDIk7c7eUiTx_hlOfIfmCHFxIkYfZF5l3s&typo=1>

This paper<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fassets.documentcloud.org%2fdocuments%2f6165808%2fU-S-Census-Bureau-Working-Paper-Understanding.pdf&c=E,1,WuWh_ix14K6jbrLQevvw8qrq-hzZm1NqPoTaQ-VCgeTXLQ0XYMuo1LjyT7Yi4rntjhGUWM5ECJLm6LeVA2UFF7Vff_veVj1jxvoifBb_WAZX5H4t6DCjYQ,,&typo=1> is forthcoming in Demography (h/t Hansi Lo Wang<https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1142936853575852032>). Here is the abstract:

he addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census could affect the self-response rate, a key driver of the cost and quality of a census. We find that citizenship question response patterns in the American Community Survey (ACS) suggest that it is a sensitive question when asked about administrative record noncitizens but not when asked about administrative record citizens. ACS respondents who were administrative record noncitizens in 2017 frequently choose to skip the question or answer that the person is a citizen. We predict the effect on self-response to the entire survey by comparing mail response rates in the 2010 ACS, which included a citizenship question, with those of the 2010 census, which did not have a citizenship question, among households in both surveys. We compare the actual ACS-census difference in response rates for households that may contain noncitizens (more sensitive to the question) with the difference for households containing only U.S. citizens. We estimate that the addition of a citizenship question will have an 8.0 percentage point larger effect on self-response rates in households that may have noncitizens relative to those with only U.S. citizens. Assuming that the citizenship question does not affect unit self-response in all-citizen households and applying the 8.0 percentage point drop to the 28.1 % of housing units potentially having at least one noncitizen would predict an overall 2.2 percentage point drop in self-response in the 2020 census, increasing costs and reducing the quality of the population count.

Recall that at oral argument in the census case, Justice Gorsuch sought to minimize census department studies which predicted (a smaller) response rate drop.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105741&title=New%20Estimate%20from%20Census%20Department%20Researchers%20Forthcoming%20in%20Peer%20Reviewed%20Journal%20Finds%20Citizenship%20Question%20Could%20Depress%20Response%20Rate%20by%208%20Percent%20in%20Households%20That%20May%20Have%20Noncitizens>
Posted in census litigation<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2felectionlawblog.org%2f%3fcat%3d125&c=E,1,lvWepiDyt5wvptovl_lCmSahdnxrPkLL2r-Zs1BPQ_RT7q9VVOlC5fFwjLiiai7bHnZgOdrOtqwB8AypEmzcyFxduR2ou5tXaru8K5hszTrCadHagYWhOJhG&typo=1>

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