Census 2020 apportionments to be released by April 30; redistricting by Sept 30

[Хahar 🤔]

Delayed municipal elections in N.C. due to the "high quality data on New Year's Eve" not being published until 9 months later.

A) nobody cares about a random NC municipal election. They can adapt to the release.

Just like nobody in those random North Carolina municipalities gives a sh**t about the opinion of an Austrian when it comes to their democracy.

(The city of Raleigh by the way, very random, you're demonstrating your intelligence on our country and discussing these issues there.)

"high quality data on New Year's Eve" doesn't really matter, because yeah, it was high-quality - but data collection only ended in late October and it takes 4 months to come uphttp://ballot-access.org/2021/02/18/illinois-2022-primary-date-may-be-moved/ with the results of the population count even in years without Covid.

So how can they say you have high quality data on 12/31 if they knew they were collecting data in late October and, per you and your own post, can't produce results from that data until late February? I work on federal government contracts with deadlines, and that would not pass muster with the feds if I tried that.

Wow, Raleigh.

So important.

That’s a city of just 400k people, smaller than the state of Carinthia - which has municipal elections next Sunday.

That’s like me talking about a municipal election in nearby Maishofen.

Last I checked, this is a thread and forum about American politics. Nobody cares about your thoughts on Austria and nobody asked them to bring them here. If you can't discuss things in a civil manner and with respect for other people, then you should leave. You certainly aren't contributing anything to this discussion or this forum.

[Tender Branson]

Delayed municipal elections in N.C. due to the "high quality data on New Year's Eve" not being published until 9 months later.

A) nobody cares about a random NC municipal election. They can adapt to the release.

Just like nobody in those random North Carolina municipalities gives a sh**t about the opinion of an Austrian when it comes to their democracy.

(The city of Raleigh by the way, very random, you're demonstrating your intelligence on our country and discussing these issues there.)

"high quality data on New Year's Eve" doesn't really matter, because yeah, it was high-quality - but data collection only ended in late October and it takes 4 months to come uphttp://ballot-access.org/2021/02/18/illinois-2022-primary-date-may-be-moved/ with the results of the population count even in years without Covid.

So how can they say you have high quality data on 12/31 if they knew they were collecting data in late October and, per you and your own post, can't produce results from that data until late February? I work on federal government contracts with deadlines, and that would not pass muster with the feds if I tried that.

Wow, Raleigh.

So important.

That’s a city of just 400k people, smaller than the state of Carinthia - which has municipal elections next Sunday.

That’s like me talking about a municipal election in nearby Maishofen.

Last I checked, this is a thread and forum about American politics. Nobody cares about your thoughts on Austria and nobody asked them to bring them here. If you can't discuss things in a civil manner and with respect for other people, then you should leave. You certainly aren't contributing anything to this discussion or this forum.

Dude, nobody cares what you think.

I have contributed far more to the topics here, while you just bump in here to this topic randomly to attack me without any substance ...

[Bacon King]

I have contributed far more to the topics here, while you just bump in here to this topic randomly to attack me without any substance ...

Your "contribution" here is an unprovoked attack on those of us who care about the effect that delayed census data will have on a prominent city in a closely-contested swing state; your comment is even more outrageous because you have clearly missed the obvious context here: Raleigh was only named as a single example of a problem that is not just affecting municipalities throughout North Carolina, but will also certainly cause similar problems nationwide.

This thread was literally created for the purpose of discussing the Census Bureau's altered schedule for the release of redistricting data, and the problems being caused by this unprecedented delay. Elsewhere in this thread we're talking about states like Virginia and New Jersey using their outdated maps into this new decade (which in any other circumstances would be totally unconstitutional) and other states like Ohio filing lawsuits demanding early data access in order to meet their own constitutional deadlines.

While these discussions have mostly focused on statewide redistricting, it's absolutely relevant here to discuss how prominent municipalities are being affected as well. These cities are facing a serious dilemma, too: should they hold elections on the legally required election date using illegal outdated district maps, or should they illegally delay their elections and hope they will be able to draw new districts in time? They're forced into an impossible situation and face lawsuits not just from their own citizens, but from both their state and federal governments as well.

How in the hell is this discussion not relevant here? How do you possibly believe you have the right to arbitrate what information is sufficiently "important" for inclusion here when it's entirely relevant to the ongoing discussion here? This is a thread about the political consequences of an altered redistricting process in the United States... on a discussion board for political geography and demographics... on a forum literally called TALK ELECTIONS... associated with and until recently literally named after a WEBSITE DEDICATED TO THE ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES!

How could you possibly believe this is in any way comparable to you butting into our conversation to rant about an Alpine Austrian village of three thousand people that literally none of us here have ever even heard of?

How would you feel if you were talking about Austria in a thread on the International Elections board and someone jumped into the thread, apropos of nothing, to post the following:

Wow, Austria.

So important.

That's a nation of just 9 million people, smaller than the state of North Carolina - which has municipal elections next Sunday.

That's like me talking about a municipal election in nearby Asheville.

Do you not understand how this is belligerent, inappropriate, and in general something only a total asshole would do?

You absolutely deserve to be called out for your toxic and disrespectful attitude. If you don't think our discussion is "important" enough for you, then frankly why are you even here in such an "unimportant" thread? Why are you even a member of this community if you are so eager to proclaim your disdain for the stuff we're literally on this website to discuss? Your attitude is unacceptable and does NOT belong here. Xahar is right -- if you stay so belligerent, then don't stay on the forum. If you are going to be an ass then you do not belong here.

[Tender Branson]

I have contributed far more to the topics here, while you just bump in here to this topic randomly to attack me without any substance ...

Your "contribution" here is an unprovoked attack on those of us who care about the effect that delayed census data will have on a prominent city in a closely-contested swing state; your comment is even more outrageous because you have clearly missed the obvious context here: Raleigh was only named as a single example of a problem that is not just affecting municipalities throughout North Carolina, but will also certainly cause similar problems nationwide.

This thread was literally created for the purpose of discussing the Census Bureau's altered schedule for the release of redistricting data, and the problems being caused by this unprecedented delay. Elsewhere in this thread we're talking about states like Virginia and New Jersey using their outdated maps into this new decade (which in any other circumstances would be totally unconstitutional) and other states like Ohio filing lawsuits demanding early data access in order to meet their own constitutional deadlines.

While these discussions have mostly focused on statewide redistricting, it's absolutely relevant here to discuss how prominent municipalities are being affected as well. These cities are facing a serious dilemma, too: should they hold elections on the legally required election date using illegal outdated district maps, or should they illegally delay their elections and hope they will be able to draw new districts in time? They're forced into an impossible situation and face lawsuits not just from their own citizens, but from both their state and federal governments as well.

How in the hell is this discussion not relevant here? How do you possibly believe you have the right to arbitrate what information is sufficiently "important" for inclusion here when it's entirely relevant to the ongoing discussion here? This is a thread about the political consequences of an altered redistricting process in the United States... on a discussion board for political geography and demographics... on a forum literally called TALK ELECTIONS... associated with and until recently literally named after a WEBSITE DEDICATED TO THE ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES!

How could you possibly believe this is in any way comparable to you butting into our conversation to rant about an Alpine Austrian village of three thousand people that literally none of us here have ever even heard of?

How would you feel if you were talking about Austria in a thread on the International Elections board and someone jumped into the thread, apropos of nothing, to post the following:

Wow, Austria.

So important.

That's a nation of just 9 million people, smaller than the state of North Carolina - which has municipal elections next Sunday.

That's like me talking about a municipal election in nearby Asheville.

Do you not understand how this is belligerent, inappropriate, and in general something only a total asshole would do?

You absolutely deserve to be called out for your toxic and disrespectful attitude. If you don't think our discussion is "important" enough for you, then frankly why are you even here in such an "unimportant" thread? Why are you even a member of this community if you are so eager to proclaim your disdain for the stuff we're literally on this website to discuss? Your attitude is unacceptable and does NOT belong here. Xahar is right -- if you stay so belligerent, then don't stay on the forum. If you are going to be an ass then you do not belong here.

10.000 people.

Your lengthy post only shows how you guys (who clearly have a problem with me) are obsessed with every little thing I post.

Why would you care about such things ?

Get a life.

I will comment on what I want and how I want and I won’t let you guys tell me what to do ...

[muon2]

The Census Bureau released a statement to provide a mechanism to get data by mid-August. The catch is that it uses an old legacy format that is not in the modern tabular form. The CB will still release the tabular data by the end of Sep, but states could request the old form data, and give it to a third party to process into a modern GIS platform at their expense and risk of errors.

[jimrtex]

The Census Bureau released a statement to provide a mechanism to get data by mid-August. The catch is that it uses an old legacy format that is not in the modern tabular form. The CB will still release the tabular data by the end of Sep, but states could request the old form data, and give it to a third party to process into a modern GIS platform at their expense and risk of errors.

Isn't the "legacy format" that used in 2010?

[cinyc]

The Census Bureau released a statement to provide a mechanism to get data by mid-August. The catch is that it uses an old legacy format that is not in the modern tabular form. The CB will still release the tabular data by the end of Sep, but states could request the old form data, and give it to a third party to process into a modern GIS platform at their expense and risk of errors.

Isn't the "legacy format" that used in 2010?

Unclear from the press release. Maybe it's the old 1990s format, which would be a real pain to turn into anything nice, but possible.

Edit: The "Legacy Format" is available for download here:
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo/program-management.html#P3

It's a perl file, whatever that is.

[jimrtex]

The Census Bureau released a statement to provide a mechanism to get data by mid-August. The catch is that it uses an old legacy format that is not in the modern tabular form. The CB will still release the tabular data by the end of Sep, but states could request the old form data, and give it to a third party to process into a modern GIS platform at their expense and risk of errors.

Isn't the "legacy format" that used in 2010?

Unclear from the press release. Maybe it's the old 1990s format, which would be a real pain to turn into anything nice, but possible.

Edit: The "Legacy Format" is available for download here:
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo/program-management.html#P3

It's a perl file, whatever that is.

It is a text file. Open one with Wordpad.

"pl" may stand for Public Law, or Pipe Limited.

Open one in Excel. The text file wizard will recognize it as a delimited file and you simply have to say that the delimiting character is a pipe (i.e. "|"). In 2010, it was a fixed field length, and Excel would guess at the field lengths, and then you would have to adjust those.

They put all the data entities in a single files, and you have to filter on summary level. For larger states you might hit limits such as the maximum number of rows in Excel (2^20) and have to edit that in a text editor. I think the blocks are at the end of the file.

You have a series of files, with record N in file 1 associated with record N in file 2, and record N in file 3, etc.

Open the prototype technical file documentation (PDF) and open the geographic header file rigeo2018_2020Style.pl in Excel. The text wizard should recognize it as a delimited file, set the delimiter as a pipe symbol "|"

The key fields are summary level (Column C), and logical record number (Column H).

Skip ahead in the documentation in Chapter 3.

The first few summary levels in the geographic header file are:

40 State
50 State-County
60 State-County-County Subdivision (town in Rhode Island)
140 State-County-Census Tract.

Census tracts do not necessarily nest inside County Subdivisions, though they might in Rhode Island. Perhaps in Washington County, the nesting is inverted - one census tract may include multiple towns. It is quite likely that VTDs do nest inside towns in Rhode Island. In the south and west, County Subdivisions are essentially meaningless.

The name fields are in columns CI and CJ, so you can see that the first few records are for Rhode Island, Providence County, and Burrillville town. The Census Test was limited to Providence County, so there is only one county record, and the state values are only for the portion of the state in the county.

Now that you have located the summary levels, back up to Chapter 1 and the Geographic Header Record (Figure 1-5). Your eyes likely glazed over this, or you might have thought the documentation repeated. Instead it specifies which fields are valid for each summary level. For example, for Summary level 40 (State) most sub-state levels are not valid.

All summary levels do include a population count (Column CM). I'm pretty sure that for Hudson that is what I used, and did not bother with the racial data.

Now you can open the data files. Column H in the Geographic Header file matches Column E in the data files.

In Excel it would probably be simplest to sort both files on those columns and copy/paste the data files into Geographic Header file. You might want to do a consistency check that the same records are in each file.

At this point, you can filter out the summary level you want, and do a join to a shapefile in QGIS. You would likely want to some consolidation of the racial categories. 126 classes is too many to conceptualize.