Census response in rural Texas is lagging
In Presidio County, volunteer census workers are coaxing the uncounted with ice cream treats, burritos and grocery store gift cards.
In Edwards County, the local newspaper recently ran a story scolding the community for its low participation.
And in Jeff Davis County, residents are getting gentle census text reminders over the county’s 911 call system.
It’s all part of a final effort to get more rural Texans to complete their census forms before the deadline. The Trump administration planned to stop the head count on Sept. 30, but a federal judge late Thursday ordered it to continue for another month.
The administration is appealing the ruling.
“It’s pretty late. We’re in the 11th hour and we’re still educating people,” said Peggy O’Brien, a “get out the count coordinator” for the Rio Grande Council of Governments in West Texas.
O’Brien is overseeing the effort in Brewster, Presidio and Jeff Davis counties. The latter two are among the 17 Texas counties with a self-response rate under 30 percent. A decade ago, both finished well over 40 percent.
Closer to San Antonio, McMullen, Real and Edwards rank in the bottom five of low-response counties in Texas.
When the counting ends, roughly 330 million people living in the United States, including 29 million in Texas, will have been
tallied.
According to the Census Bureau, more than 95 percent of U.S. households already have been counted in an effort thatbegan this spring.
Of the total, 66 percent provided information voluntarily by mail, email or phone call. The remainder were tallied by census enumerators, who are still working in rural areas. The self-response rate in Texas is just under 62 percent.
Theoverall response rate inTexas, which includes those tallied by enumerators, is 96.5 percent, about the same as the national rate.
“We are being innovative. We are doing creative things to get the word out,” said Ximena Alvarez, a census spokeswoman in San Antonio.
But because an undercount will have adverse political and financial implications for the next decade, thecurrent slowpace inTexas is worrisome to local and state leaders.
Unlike some other large states, Texas did not appropriate money to promote census participation in the last legislative session.
Late lastmonth, the state quietly coughed up $15 million to spend on a last-minute advertising campaign to up the count. This came after months of leaving the task to local governments and nonprofits. Critics say it may be too little too late.
Among them is Democratic state Rep. César Blanco of El Paso, who in 2019 filed a bill seeking to create a state level “Complete Count Commission.”
Its mission was to pursue an “outreach program to encourage full participation in the census.” Blanco also sought $100 million in funding. Both efforts failed.
“Unfortunately, politics got in the way, and the Republicans blocked it,” he said.
Because the distribution of billions in federal funds to states and local entities is based on population, an undercount in Texas will be costly.
Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, co-sponsored the census commission bill. He said the consequences of the state taking no significant action on the census may be felt for a long time.
“Regrettably, because of politics and incompetence, the census will likely result in a large undercount in Texas. A 1 percent undercount will cost us $300 million a year over a decade,” he said.
Raffles and online games
While it is certain that the state’s population has grown, the question is, exactly howmuch?
Between 2000 and 2010, Texas added more than 4 million residents, resulting in three new congressional seats.
Since then, anestimated3.5 million new residents have arrived, which could add two or three more seats.
Since this spring, O’Brien has been using a wide variety of approaches to encourage census participation.
“We’ve been going to the food banks for eight months. We go to the Presidio port of entry on Fridays to talk to people crossing to Mexico. We do reverse 911 messaging. We’re going to raffle off 190 prizes in the tricounty area. We’re having a TikTok video competition for the students,” she said.
Jeff Davis County Judge Larry Francell is distressed to see his county lagging.
“We’re trying to get the word out, but I don’t have a solution to the problem,” he said.
“People just don’t understand that for the next 10 years, federal programs and representation will depend on the census,” he added.
The suspected reasons for the low turnout in rural Texas vary from county to county.
For starters, the U.S. Census does not mail materials to post office boxes, which are used by many rural Texans to receive mail.
And while the coronavirus pandemic, which stalled the census field effort, is no doubt a factor,
others also see a general distrust of government.
The consequences of a toxic national political debate about immigrants may also be a factor.
Some residents who are non- citizens were likely spooked earlier this year when the Trump administration attempted to add a citizenship question to the census. A federal court blocked the effort in June.
Critics claimed it was a barely disguised effort to suppress participation by immigrants.
And then there are those who believe the government is usually up to no good and should always be avoided.
“We have a lot of people who come out here to lead private lives and be ‘back-over-yonders,’ to basically get away from everything,” Francell said.
In La Salle County, south of San Antonio, divisive national politics may have dampened participation.
“I would think it has to do with the president’s attitude. Some of the things that have come out have been pretty much against people in South Texas,” Cotulla City Manager Larry Dovalina said. “There’s distrust of the federal system and how things are going these days.”
To the west, on the Mexican border in Zapata County, where the self-response rate is historically low, this year is no different.
“We’re pushing it. The last report is thatwe are doing a little better than 10 years ago,” County Judge Joel Rathmell said. “Wehave a large immigrant population. A lot of them are afraid to come forward. We’re trying to convince them that it won’t affect them in any way.”
Some folks south of San Antonio in McMullen County, one of the state’s wealthiest but least-populated counties, wonder if the Census Bureau just plain forgot about them this year.
“No one in McMullen County got a post card this year. No one received any census information, so it’s a slow go,” said Jayne Varga, secretary to County Judge Jim Teal.
“I have been actively pursuing everyone I can think of on Facebook, social media, and making phone calls. But a lot of them are elderly people who don’t have access to the internet,” she added.
Suspicion about government
Edwards County (population 2,000), where goats outnumber humans by about 17 to 1, has the lowest self-response rate in Texas at 17.7 percent.
Until recently, locals there thought their Hill Country settlement owned a far more ignominious distinction.
On Sept. 17, the Texas Mohair Weekly ran a startling front-page story that announced Edwards ranked as the worst response rate in the country.
“A representative of the U.S. Census Bureau recently informed this writer that Edwards County currently ranks number one in the lowest reporting numbers in the nation,” reporter Brenna Bissett wrote. “She stressed, ‘Not just in Texas, but in the whole nation.’ ”
Fortunately, that census worker was wrong. That unenviable distinction belongs to Rich County, Utah, which has a self-response rate of 13.2 percent, according to Alvarez, the census spokeswoman in San Antonio.
“Edwards County ranks 3,211th with 17.7 percent,” she added.
Still, the low rate of participation in Edwards County is amatter of concern.
“It be fuddles me,” County Commissioner Andrew Barnaby said. “We have plenty of well-educated people that I run into who say, ‘I”m not going to answer those questions.’ ”
“There are always folks who want to be very independent and have suspicion about the government. We have a few of those, but no one here has any big resentments.”
Terry Carrillo, 48, whohas lived in Edwards County for 35 years and was a census enumerator there until driving the rough ranch roads got the better of her car, said the experience left her with a new perspective on her supposedly close-knit hometown.
“You know, when it comes down to it, we’re not really united aswe saywe are,” she began.
While most people she approached as an enumerator were friendly and cooperative, a few were downright rude, she said.
“It really upset me. The ones who closed the door in my face. It was an eye-opening experience,” she said .“You can be united on the football field. Why can’t you be united on this too? You are helping everyone in the community.”
Alvarez attributes the low participation in rural Texas areas in part to the effects of the pandemic and logistical issues.
“We had to put a pause on operations. Rural areas were not able to respond as they usually would because we don’t deliver to post office boxes,” she said.
But, she acknowledged, another significant factor was likely distrust of the government.
“Ahuge thing is fear — fear of information being shared,” she said. “Butwe at the Census Bureau take an oath for life: We cannot share any information with businesses, law enforcement or anyone.”