A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the historic COVID-19-induced disruption to the 2020 Census warned that delays and changes to the headcount operations “present further risks to an accurate, timely, and cost-effective count.”
GAO recommended that the Census Bureau look at the following factors “to ensure the implementation and quality of the count”:
- Continued attention to self-response;
- Communicating pandemic plans to ensure continued operations;
- Achieving and maintaining sufficient staffing levels;
- Revising its approach to communications and partnerships;
- Adjusting plans for Group Quarters and Service-Based Enumeration;
- Monitoring ongoing risks to IT systems implementation;
- Managing disinformation and misinformation;
- Addressing cybersecurity weaknesses;
- Protecting the privacy of respondent data;
- Ensuring data quality under potentially compressed timeframes; and
- Evaluating the impact of census delays on data quality.
“2020 Census: COVID-19 Presents Delays and Risks to Census Count.” June 2000. https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/707456.pdf
