Republicans have messed up the 2010 census too

NYTimes:

Preparations for the 2010 census are a shambles.

Committees in the House have been holding hearings to vet the problems and monitor progress. But with each hearing, it becomes more obvious that prospects for a robust census are unlikely to improve considerably unless and until the next president brings in new leaders. They are needed at the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau, and at the bureau itself, which — like so many federal agencies — has been mismanaged and demoralized during the Bush years. [...]

The quality of the nation's democracy depends on the census, because the numbers are used to decide the number of Congressional seats from each state and hence the number of votes each state has in the Electoral College. It's hard to ignore the impression of partisan motives in policies that hobble the census, because an inaccurate census invariably undercounts out-of-the-mainstream groups not typically aligned with Republicans.