Sep 4, 2020 By Barbara S. Miller staff Writer bmiller@observer-Reporter.Com 2 min read

As the Sept. 30 deadline to complete the 2020 U.S. Census approaches, workers are going door-to-door, both for quality assurance checks on those who have responded, to verify an address, and to gather information from those who have not filled out a questionnaire.

Addresses are important to the census so that everyone is counted in the right place and that the response matches an assigned identification number.

In rare cases, the census bureau may have two addresses on a list that refer to the same housing unit.

This occasionally happens if an address update the census bureau receives from the U.S. Postal Service or state and local governments differs significantly in spelling or formatting.

U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said, “If you get a visit and you’ve already responded, please be patient and kind and answer the census taker’s questions.

“Please don’t worry about being counted twice. By cooperating with the census taker, you’re helping us count you in the right place, and we have established methods and processes to remove duplicates.

“We would much rather have to remove some duplicates than miss you entirely or risk your community being underrepresented and underfunded.”