Appendix D: Questions for the Census Bureau
The questions below consolidate the major unresolved issues identified throughout this guide. They are intended as a practical menu for briefings, correspondence, congressional oversight, stakeholder meetings, and other engagement with the Census Bureau.
The list is not exhaustive, and not every audience will need every question. In most settings, advocates should select the questions tied to the decisions that are currently open and press for specific dates, documents, evidence, and follow-up rather than attempting to cover the entire list at once.
Overall Design and Decision-Making
Which major elements of Baseline 1 have changed since its publication?
Which decisions are expected to be resolved in Baseline 2, and which will remain open afterward?
What are the most consequential 2030 decisions Census expects to make before the 2028 Dress Rehearsal?
Which major operational rules are already sufficiently mature to be driving requirements, procurements, or software development?
How will Census make those rules available for outside review before they become difficult to change?
Can Census provide a crosswalk showing how major research findings and recommendations translated into Baseline 1 and later design decisions?
When Census rejects or modifies a research recommendation, how is that decision documented?
What operational decisions currently present the greatest risk to census quality?
In-Office Enumeration
Under what circumstances can a housing unit be completed through In-Office Enumeration (IOE) rather than continued field contact?
What minimum contact attempts are required before a case becomes eligible for IOE?
Does Census distinguish between unsuccessful contact caused by absence, language barriers, access barriers, refusal, or other reasons?
What administrative or supplemental data must be available before Census considers a case sufficiently supported for IOE?
Are the standards different for establishing occupancy, household size, person placement, and individual characteristics?
How will Census evaluate IOE quality separately for historically undercounted populations?
What share of the 2030 population does Census currently expect could be enumerated through IOE?
What limits, if any, will prevent IOE from becoming a substantial substitute for direct enumeration?
What information about IOE use and performance will Census publish after the census?
Administrative Data and the Person Characteristic Frame
Which administrative and supplemental data sources are currently expected to support the Person Characteristic Frame and IOE?
What quality standards must a source meet before it can be used for enumeration rather than workload management or research?
Will Census publish source-specific assessments of coverage, timeliness, address accuracy, household composition, and characteristic quality?
How does performance vary for young children, recent movers, immigrants, tribal populations, people experiencing housing instability, and other populations with potentially weaker records?
How will Census handle conflicting information from administrative sources?
When a direct household response conflicts with the PCF or another administrative source, which receives priority?
How will Census evaluate whether the PCF reconstructs complex households accurately?
What safeguards restrict access to linked PCF data?
How are access, transfers, and uses of PCF information logged and audited?
What technical safeguards prevent PCF data from being repurposed for enforcement or other nonstatistical uses?
Response Processing, Matching, and Quality Control
What rules determine whether a response is sufficiently complete?
Are sufficiency standards different for the population count and individual characteristics?
How does Census select a primary response when multiple responses exist for the same address?
Under what circumstances can administrative or third-party information override a self-response?
What matching thresholds will be used for people and addresses?
How are false matches and missed matches evaluated across demographic groups and household types?
When does an uncertain match receive human review?
How will duplicate resolution distinguish actual duplicates from legitimate situations such as shared custody or temporary residence?
What kinds of anomalies will trigger near real-time quality-control review?
How will Census test whether anomaly detection or response-resolution systems perform differently for less common household structures and populations?
What records will be preserved so that an automated decision can later be reconstructed?
Field Enumeration
What contact strategy will Census use for nonresponding households?
How many in-person attempts will ordinarily occur before proxy response or IOE?
What rules determine when fieldwork ends?
How will Census ensure that models are used to target additional effort rather than withdraw effort from households predicted to be difficult or expensive?
What circumstances require additional attempts, specialized staff, or supervisor review?
How will Census measure differential field effort across communities?
What assumptions underlie the planned reduction in physical census offices?
How will Census preserve local knowledge and rapid local problem-solving with a more centralized field structure?
Which field operations will use cross-trained workers, and which will retain specialized staff?
What lessons from the USPS enumerator pilot will determine whether that approach expands in 2030?
Language Access
How does Census interpret the Commerce English-language policy as it applies to the decennial census?
Which elements of the Baseline 1 Language Program remain current?
Which languages will receive full internet questionnaires, telephone response, field support, bilingual mailings, translated guides, and partner materials?
What criteria will determine those language selections?
Will Census evaluate the effects of reducing individual language services on response, field workload, proxy response, and data quality?
How will Census identify locally concentrated language needs that may not meet national thresholds?
Will bilingual field staffing goals be established by geography and language?
When will final language decisions be made for the 2028 Dress Rehearsal and 2030 Census?
Self-Response and Accessibility
Will households be able to request a paper questionnaire throughout the self-response period?
How will paper requests work for people without internet access or digital accounts?
Will no-ID response remain available without documentation or digital verification requirements?
What alternative will always accompany QR codes so residents can independently verify Census materials?
Will Census provide full telephone response as well as automated assistance?
How will accessibility be tested across internet, telephone, paper, and field modes?
How will Census evaluate whether digital-first strategies perform differently for older adults, people with disabilities, people with low literacy, rural residents, and people using shared devices?
Address List and Geography
How will Census determine which areas require field verification under continuous address updating?
What evidence shows that continuous updating performs adequately in rural, remote, tribal, rapidly changing, and informal housing environments?
How will the Locate Address Test findings change the 2030 address strategy?
How will Census identify hidden or subdivided housing units that do not appear in standard administrative or commercial sources?
What role will LUCA, New Construction, states, local governments, tribes, and fieldworkers retain in correcting the address frame?
Will Census publish address-frame quality measures by geography and community type?
How will Census prevent apparent improvements in national address quality from masking concentrated local omissions?
Group Quarters and Special Living Situations
Which group quarters types will offer residents a direct self-response option?
When Census relies on facility records, how will it evaluate the accuracy of race, ethnicity, age, and other characteristics?
How will correctional-facility enumeration protect confidentiality and preserve opportunities for accurate self-report?
What is the 2030 plan for outdoor enumeration of people experiencing homelessness, including the function previously performed through TNSOL?
How will Census protect the locations and residents of confidential shelters?
Which group quarters require specialized rather than general field training?
What targeted tests will replace group quarters activities removed from the reduced 2026 Census Test?
How will Census evaluate enumeration quality separately across different group quarters types?
Coverage Measurement and Census Quality
How will Coverage Estimation remain meaningfully independent from the census operation it is evaluating?
Which administrative data sources and matching systems will be shared between the census and Coverage Estimation?
How will Census measure correlated error when the same source is incomplete in both systems?
How much independent field interviewing will remain?
Will Census sample cases where the census and administrative data appear to agree in order to estimate shared omissions?
What population and geographic detail will Coverage Estimation produce?
Will Census expand quality measurement for disability, detailed race and ethnicity, housing instability, group quarters, or other populations not adequately described by traditional coverage estimates?
When will Coverage Estimation study plans and evaluation measures become public?
Demographic Analysis and Other Quality Measures
What improvements are planned for Demographic Analysis in 2030?
How will Census address uncertainty in international migration estimates?
What race and ethnicity detail will be available in DA?
What state- or county-level measures will be available, particularly for young children?
How will Census explain limitations where DA cannot independently evaluate particular characteristics or populations?
What operational assessments and evaluations will be completed after 2030, and when will their study plans be published?
Will Census commit to publishing unfavorable or inconclusive evaluation results as well as successful ones?
Disclosure Avoidance and Data Products
How does Census interpret the Commerce prohibition on noise infusion?
What disclosure avoidance methods remain under consideration for 2030?
What is the revised research and decision timeline?
What standards will Census use to evaluate privacy protection and data utility?
Which products or geographic levels are at greatest risk of coarsening, suppression, or elimination?
What minimum utility standards will apply to redistricting, civil rights, tribal, rural, and small-population data?
When will Census release demonstration products under the replacement system?
Will demonstration products include realistic complementary suppression and other secondary effects?
How will Census evaluate impacts on small racial and ethnic groups and small geographies?
What independent scientific review will occur before the disclosure system is finalized?
Will Census seek or support revision of the Commerce DAO if permitted methods cannot provide both adequate confidentiality and usable data?
Redistricting Data
What race, ethnicity, voting-age, and group quarters detail does Census currently expect to include in the P.L. 94-171 file?
What demographic information will remain available at the block level?
How will Census reconcile block-level redistricting needs with the Commerce disclosure avoidance policy?
How will Census test whether resulting data remain usable for local as well as congressional and state legislative redistricting?
Will state officials receive embargoed access before the public?
If so, who will receive access, for how long, and what restrictions will govern use?
Why is an embargo operationally necessary rather than simultaneous public release?
What information will Census publish about embargo recipients, timing, and security?
When will final redistricting file specifications become available?
Questionnaire Content
Which questionnaire-content decisions remain open?
What process will govern decisions about race and ethnicity, household relationships, sex, and other consequential characteristics?
How will Census ensure that content decisions follow research, testing, statistical standards, and public engagement?
What role will Commerce or other administration officials have in changing questionnaire content?
How will Census document departures from earlier research recommendations or statistical standards?
What is the latest practical date for content changes to receive realistic testing before 2030?
Communications, Partnerships, and Trust
How will Census replace the functions previously served by its formal advisory committees?
What recurring public mechanisms will allow affected communities to question assumptions and make recommendations?
Which historically undercounted populations are specifically included in the 2030 partnership strategy?
How will Census identify gaps in trusted-messenger capacity rather than simply count partner organizations?
When will the national communications research and campaign-development process begin?
What procurement vehicle will support communications and advertising?
How will multilingual and multicultural communications expertise be incorporated?
What resources will community partners have to support outreach?
How will Census respond if organizations are reluctant to promote participation because of concerns about data use, immigration enforcement, language policy, or questionnaire content?
What evidence will Census provide partners so they can responsibly assure communities that participation is safe?
Testing
What questions can the reduced 2026 Census Test still answer?
Which original test objectives were removed when Census reduced the test from six sites to two?
What research will replace each lost objective?
When will those findings be available relative to Baseline 2?
How will Census test tribal operations, multilingual response, group quarters, remote rural addressing, mobility, accessibility, and administrative-record gaps?
What predetermined measures are being used to evaluate the 2026 Test?
Which results will be reported by community or population rather than only overall?
When will full test findings be released?
How will Census document whether each major recommendation was adopted, modified, deferred, or rejected?
What unresolved questions must the 2028 Dress Rehearsal answer before production?
Procurement, Funding, and Workforce
Which acquisitions are on the critical path for the 2028 Dress Rehearsal?
Are any major procurements currently behind the schedule necessary for realistic testing?
When will communications and printing acquisitions appear on the public procurement schedule?
Which 2030 capabilities will rely on broader enterprise contracts?
How are decennial costs allocated within shared Census systems?
What service guarantees protect the decennial census when enterprise systems serve competing programs?
What savings does Census expect from reduced fieldwork, fewer offices, automation, administrative data, and enterprise reuse?
What quality evidence supports each savings assumption?
What contingency exists if self-response, administrative records, staffing, or other assumptions perform worse than expected?
How many temporary workers does Census currently expect to recruit?
How will staffing models account for language skills, local knowledge, group quarters expertise, and difficult-to-recruit geographies?
What operational capabilities would be reduced first if appropriations fall below planned levels?
IT, Cybersecurity, and Continuity
Which critical 2030 functions depend on enterprise or cloud-based systems?
What systems present the greatest single points of operational failure?
How will Census continue enumeration during a major cloud or network interruption?
What contingency exists for contractor failure?
Can critical systems be modified quickly if a court order or late policy decision requires a design change?
What safeguards protect against internal misuse of sensitive census data as well as external cyberattack?
How will Census detect unauthorized access to linked person-level information?
What functions can continue if a major cyber incident occurs during peak enumeration?
How are resilience and recovery tested before 2030?
Documentation and Accountability
What records will Census retain to reconstruct major automated and operational decisions?
Will Census preserve model versions, thresholds, source assessments, contact histories, enumeration methods, quality interventions, and leadership decisions?
Can Census determine after the fact which rule and data source applied to a particular case?
How will changes made during production be versioned and documented?
Which methodological and decision records will be published proactively?
Which records will be preserved for FOIA, National Archives transfer, or secure long-term research?
How will Census ensure that records needed for litigation or later evaluation are not overwritten or destroyed during normal system operation?
Will Census publish an explicit 2030 archiving and auditability plan before production begins?
Questions About Timing
For almost every substantive issue, advocates should ask one final set of questions:
When will this decision be made?
What evidence will inform it?
When can the public see that evidence?
What opportunity exists for outside review?
When does the decision begin driving requirements, procurement, or software?
What is the last realistic date on which the design can still change?
Who is accountable for the final decision?
Those questions may be more important than asking whether an issue is technically “final.” A decision can remain formally open long after its practical alternatives have narrowed.
The objective of this appendix is therefore not merely to obtain answers from Census. It is to identify which answers are needed, from whom, and by when so that outside engagement can still influence the 2030 Census.
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