Census To Miss Year-End Deadline For Delivering Numbers For House Seats

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.

A Census Bureau employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation in the workplace, confirmed to NPR that the bureau is still trying to fix irregularities uncovered in this year's census records.

The employee told NPR that career officials at the agency are working toward Jan. 9 as an internal target date for completing the current stage of processing records before assessing when to begin the final steps in producing new state population counts used to apportion seats in the House of Representatives and electoral votes among the states.