Retirees and students in Florida are seeking to defend 2020 census results against a GOP challenge

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Two Florida university students and an advocacy group for retirees are asking a federal judge to let them intervene in a lawsuit filed by young Republican groups challenging the 2020 census results, saying they worry that the Trump administration won’t vigorously defend the case.

The Trump administration has attacked the 2020 census results instead of defending the head count, the Alliance for Retired Americans and the two University of Central Florida students wrote Tuesday in their motion to intervene.

They said they are concerned that the Republican administration and the young Republican groups could reach a settlement that would alter 2020 census numbers and undercount people in nursing homes and college dorms.

The numbers gathered from the once-a-decade head count are used to determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets. They also guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual federal spending.

But the 2020 census numbers have come under attack this year from Republicans, as President Donald Trump has been pressuring Republican-led state legislatures to redraw their congressional districts to benefit the GOP ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Revised census numbers from a successful lawsuit could be used in redistricting efforts.

In an August social media post, Trump instructed the Commerce Department to have the Census Bureau start work on a new census that would exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally. The 14th Amendment, however, says that “the whole number of persons in each state” are to be counted, and the Census Bureau has interpreted that to mean anybody residing in the U.S., regardless of legal status. Federal courts have repeatedly supported that interpretation.

Concerns that the Republican administration wouldn’t vigorously defend the 2020 count were raised by census and redistricting experts when the young Republican groups sued in federal court in Tampa in September.

“The Commerce Department, you know, might just throw up their hands and say, ‘We agree with the plaintiffs,’” said Jeffrey Wice, a New York Law School professor.

The lawsuit by the University of South Florida College Republicans and the Pinellas County Young Republicans challenges two methods used during the 2020 census — “differential privacy” and “imputation” for group quarters, which include college dorms, nursing homes and other places where people live together under one roof.

Differential privacy adds intentional errors to the data to obscure the identity of any given participant in the 2020 census while still providing statistically valid information. Imputation is a process of using other information to fill in data about people when census-takers can’t reach anyone at a particular address.

Although the 2020 census numbers were released during the first months of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, the execution and final planning for the head count, including the decision to use the statistical methods, took place during Trump’s first term.

The 2020 census faced unprecedented obstacles from the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes and wildfires, social unrest and efforts by the Trump administration to end the count early. Group quarters such as college dorms and nursing homes were especially challenging because campuses were closed and care facilities restricted access in an effort to halt the spread of COVID-19.

In the Florida lawsuit, three federal judges have been designated to hear arguments in the case. Two of the judges were nominated by Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and Trump, and the third was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

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