Census forms to be preserved as digital images for the first time

Steve Campbell
April 14, 2010

How was the handwriting on your 2010 Census form?

In 72 years, when this year's individual forms will be first released, your descendants will be able to judge for themselves.

For the first time, what will be made public for genealogical research in 2082 is a digitally scanned image of this year's 10-question paper forms, said David Hackbarth, director of the Census Bureau 's National Processing Center in Jeffersonville, Ind. After they are digitized, the paper questionnaires will be shredded and recycled.

"The census form you fill out, your great-great-great grandchildren will be able to see it," Gabriel Sanchez, the Dallas-based regional census director. "You become part of the American fabric forever. As long as there is a country, you will be there to see."

After spending months prodding people to return their forms, the bureau must quickly turn around the data so that the once-a-decade head count will be available to President Barack Obama on Dec. 31.

The census is used to determine representation in the U .S. House and to distribute more than $400 billion in federal funds. Fast-growing Texas also is expected to pick up four House seats.

To handle the crunch during the peak return period this month, the Jeffersonville center swells to 5,700 employees working in 1.6 million square feet, Hackbarth said. The facility handles 150 other surveys during non- census years.

It will handle about 20 percent of the forms; the other 80 percent will be processed by two temporary data capture centers managed by Lockheed Martin, in Baltimore and Phoenix.

In the margins

What your kinfolks won't see are the family photos and other "supplemental" materials that the centers deal with as they turn 130 million household forms into permanent electronic records. Another 50 million forms will come from places like group homes, prisons, temporary housing facilities and, starting in May, 700,000 census workers in the field.

"People do mail back things like family photos and extra information," Sanchez said. "A lot of people add things in the margins. A lot of people put down American because they object to the concept of the ethnic divide."

Hackbarth said it's not a constant problem, "but when you are talking in millions it adds up quick. It's not something we encourage."

Julia Dunlap, program director for Lockheed Martin's census operations, refers to those extras as "marginalia."

"Our favorite story from 2000, we got mailed to us someone's complete tax returns and all of his family history information," she said. "There are some people out there who really believe, and this is great, that the census is important and they want to share as much information as possible."

Poor penmanship

But the add-ons do require analysis.

Most of the 2,500 workers at each temporary center are "keyers" who check anything the electronic scanners can't interpret, she said.

Lockheed Martin also manages 11 call centers around the country to handle about 16 million phone calls for a total temporary work force of 13,000, Dunlap said. And starting in May, the call centers will make follow-up calls on about 8 million cases, she said.

The two 250,000-square-feet temporary facilities each have the capacity to receive about 18 tractor-trailer-loads of forms a day, she said. At their peak, they can process 12 million forms daily.

"The critical thing about the census is speed and that's what people don't think about. The end date is mandated by the Constitution so we can't be late," Dunlap said. "It really is like a symphony. All these parts must work very effectively together to optimize the schedule and optimize the data.

"Because, we can't just do this quickly, we have to do it accurately. We have to deliver all the data to the census bureau within a 99 percent accuracy level."

Nationally, about 67 percent have mailed back forms, the bureau said Monday. In Texas, 62 percent have responded, with 64 percent returned in Tarrant County.

Dunlap said the processing centers are keeping up with the mountains of paperwork.

"Some people say, 'Well you're just processing a form,'" she said. "I appreciate that characterization, but at the same time it's the handwriting of 140 million different respondents that we have to deal with.

"None of whom, in my opinion, have very good handwriting."

But she'll excuse all that poor penmanship. After all, she too had a "scratch out" on her form.

"I was like, 'Oh, no, I messed up my census form.' Even if you are so focused on it you make those errors, and that's what we have to deal with."

STEVE CAMPBELL, 817-390-7981