AMERICA’S GOVERNMENT?relies on regularly updated, accurate tallies of how many people live within its borders. To produce the data, the founders charged the government with administering an “enumeration” of “the whole number of free persons” living in each state every ten years. Most notably, the decennial census data are used to assign members of Congress to each state according to population. But the tallies are also used as a guide for allocating billions of dollars in programmes such as Medicaid, child health insurance and food stamps for low-income mothers.

美国政府依靠定期更新的、准确的统计数据来计算其境内的人口数量。为了获取这些数据，美国的建国者们要求政府每十年统计一次居住在各州的“自由人的总数”。最值得注意的是，十年一次的人口普查数据用于按人口比例分配给各州议会席位数量。这些数据还会影响数十亿美元医疗补助计划、儿童健康保险和低收入母亲食品券等项目的分配。

This year the accuracy of the census is at risk. Researchers are afraid that the Census Bureau may not be able to count enough people, or a fully representative set of Americans. Facing extra burdens imposed by the Trump administration as well as staffing shortfalls as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, the agency could end up undercounting minority voters which would bias the government against them for at least the next ten years.

今年的人口普查准确性可能会出现错误情况。研究人员担心人口普查局可能无法统计到足够的人口，或者不能统计出能够完全代表美国人口比例的数据。特朗普政府施加的更多压力，以及新冠疫情造成的人员短缺，这两个因素导致人口普查局最终可能无法统计全部少数族裔选民的人数，这意味着未来至少10年里，政府会对少数族裔不利。

The task of enumerating America is a massive one. Records must be compiled on almost every citizen, which requires hundreds of thousands of hours of research and hiring and co-ordinating more than half a million workers. Aside from data processing and technical work, the actual counting takes place in three stages.

美国人口统计是一项庞大工程，必须记录几乎每一个公民的信息，要花费数十万小时来做研究，并要招募并协调50多万名人员。除了数据处理和技术工作外，实际的人口统计工作分三个阶段进行。

First, the government sends a request to fill out the census questionnaire to every household in the country. The primary census form asks for the name and demographic information of each person living there. In past censuses respondents posted these forms back, but for the first time this year they could fill them out online.

首先，美国政府会向所有家庭发送一份人口普查问卷表。这种人口普查摸底表格要求提供家庭成员的姓名和人口信息。以前人口普查时，受访者要将这些表格邮寄回去，但今年人们首次可以在网上填写人口普查表。

Most Americans end up submitting a completed census form themselves. In 2010, the final self-response rate was 67%, indicating that two-thirds of households were counted by mail. For those who do not respond, the bureau deploys an army of interviewers called “enumerators” to contact them in person. If neither of these approaches gets a response, the bureau hazards a guess as to how many people live in a household by looking at reports for households round about. They use a similar method to fill in demographic information for households who provide no data.

大多数美国人最终要自己提交一份完整的人口普查表。2010年，最终的个人回复率为67%，意味着三分之二的家庭是通过邮件完成统计。对于那些没有答复的人，人口普查局派了一支“人口普查员”队伍与他们直接联系。如果这两种普查方式都没有得到回应，人口普查局就可能通过查看家庭的相关报告来大胆猜测这家有多少人。他们用类似的方法为没提供数据的家庭填写人口统计信息。

This is all complex enough in a normal year, but the agency faces extra hurdles in 2020. First, Mr Trump and his administration have waged numerous political battles against the census. Put off by the constitution’s stipulation that the census should include all “persons” in the country, which they think unfairly gives a voice to millions of undocumented immigrants, the administration has tried to exclude them from the count. After losing a court battle to add a citizenship question to the questionnaire—which experts believed would have discouraged Latinos and immigrants from responding—Mr Trump on July 21st issued a presidential memorandum declaring that people living in the country illegally should be ignored for congressional apportionment in 2021. The move is probably unconstitutional, but researchers are concerned that the politicisation of the census may hurt its legitimacy and make people even less inclined to fill out the forms.