Jeffrey MervisWith the clock winding down on the 2020 census, the U.S. statistical community is mounting a last-ditch campaign to prevent what it fears will be a seriously flawed headcount.Social scientists want Congress to create an independent oversight body to monitor the final weeks of the decennial census and to give the Census Bureau more time to count every U.S.
resident. The proposals come in response to several recent actions by the Trump administration that experts fear will undermine the agency’s constitutionally mandated duty to produce a complete and accurate census.