Itīs not like the UK is the only country that is killing the traditional Census. Many other countries in Europe have already given up the traditional method of a full population count by census takers and will already conduct their next Census by using population registers.
In Germany, Austria and Switzerland this will be the case in 2010 and 2011 and for this, the so called Melderegister (residence registers) will be checked and double-checked, as well as social security registers, housing registers and school registers.
Of course, this is not possible in the US, as the US has no mandatory registration when people move from one city to another. So they have to keep the traditional and more costly Census. The new Census method is quite (cost) effective and has been tested in various trial Censuses here.
If the US would introduce a registration system in each town and conduct a Census based on that register, the cost of the Census would not amount to 15 Bio. $, but more like 3-5 Bio. $
I didn't know other European countries were going to do this too.
Like Snowguy said, its in the Constitution, which means its nearly impossible to change unless there is strong approval to do so across all ideologies. We can't have a registration system, it would be overwhelmingly opposed, by Democrats as well.
