The Eeonomist March 21st 2020~have intemet access. Many live in places
only accessible with four-wheel drives.
counting everybody in Deep East Tens
was never going to be easy. Now it looks
like it may be near impossible. "The coro-
navirus has certainly complicated mat-
ters.~ says Mr Hunt. To help ensure an accu-
rate count, DETCOG had hired a dozen
census co-ordinaton to go out to commu-
nity events-sports matches, church ser-
vices, school sports days-with informa-
tion to persuade people to send their
returns in, and internet hotspots and iPads
with which to do it on the spot. Most of
thoseeventsarenowbeingcancelled. With
people staying indoors, they probably will
not encounter any of the workers meant to
explain to them the importance of the cen-
sus and getthem to fill it in.
The viIUs may represent the biggest
threat to the United States census in its
230-year histoi:y. Mandated by the consti-
tution. it is the world's most expensive and
among the world's oldest consistent dat.a-
gathering operations. The results deter-
mine how many congressional seats and
electoral-collegevotesareallocatedtoeach
state, and where those districts are.
Roughly $1.5tm of federal money each year
is spent according to data derived at least in
part from census returns. It is not just the
government that uses it. Firms use it to de-
cide where to build supermarkets, taqet
advertising or open factories. "Bvei:y nook
and cranny of the private economy relies
on census data; says Andrew Rea.mer of
George washington University.
It is also a hage operation involving
hundreds of thousands of workers tr.wel-
ling a.cross the oountJy knocking on doors.
In 2010 a quarter of Americans were count-
ed by workers in person. It is not only the
door-knocking, which begins on May 13th,
thatmaybethreatened bytheneedforpeo-
ple to self-isolate. The televised sports
events that advertising would have target-
ed, such as the March Madness college bas-
ketball games, are all being cancelled.
Even before the outbreak of the viIUs
this year's census was raising concerns.
The census is meant to record evei:y siogle
person in America on the day it is held. But
this year President Donald TrUmp's govern-
ment wanted to add a question to the cen-
sus about citizenship. The question was
struck down by the Supreme Court. But
Nestor Lopez, an official from HidaJgo
county along the ~Mexico border,
says he worries many people, especially
undocumented immigrants, still fear in-
formation gathered could be used against
them. People wdo not want to be answering
anything from the federal government," he
says. In fact. personally identifiable data
from the census cannot be revealed for 72
years, even to other government agencies.
But most people do not know that. And
now they may never hear otherwise.
So far the Census Bureau has only made
modest changes. On .March 18th the agency
announced that all field operations are to
be suspended until April tst. on other sur-
veys officials will make phone calls instead
of visits. It has asked administrators of
ngroup quartersu -institutions like nurs-
ing homes, prisons and college dormito-
ries-to "choose a way to count their resi-
dents that requires less in-person contact".
Butmoreradicaladjustmentsmaybeneed-
ed. Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former director
of the House committee that oversees the
census, notes thatthe count takes ten years
to plan, and •yet now the census Bureau is
being forced to make shifts basically on the
fly". on March t7th Brazil announced it
would delay its census by a year. American
officials might have to consider that, too. •The Democratic primaryElectoral
distancing
NEW YORK
Joe Biden builds an insurmountable
lead in the pandemic's 1lwlowM
AGNANIMITY IS A winner's privilege,
and the speech that Joe Biden deliv-
ered on March t7th was amply magnani-
mous. He told supporters of Bernie Sand-
ers, whom he defeated in all three states
voting that night, that he and bis rival •may
disagree on tactics, but we share a common
visionu. Standing alone in his Delaware
home behind a podium (a necessary piece
of furniture for a candidate working from
home), he praised first responders and
poll-workers, consoled the bereaved andPrimary prophylaxisUnited States 25sounded more like a wartime president
than a candidate. His victoiyin the primaiy
is now all but assured. But what campaign-
ing and voting will look like during the
pandemic is anything but.
The most strlkJng aspect of Mr Biden's
victory was its breadth. Arizona., Florida
and Illinois collectively have 184 counties.
BemieSanders won three of them, none by
more than five points. He hoped that Lat-
inos would buoy him in Florida, but lost
the state by nearly 40 points. This may
partly have been because of the weight of
Cuban-Americans: Mr sanders-in an act
either of admil:able principle or political
lunacy-has repeatedly praised the accom-
plishments of the Castro regime. nte pic-
ture was different in Arizona, which Mr
Sanders lost byjustu points. A greater pro-
portion of Latinos there are Mexican, and
many are recent arrivals; these groups tend
to be more left-wing than Hispanics in
Florida. And Arizona has a bigger Hispanic
population than Florida: 30% of its resi-
dents are Latinos versus 23% in Florida.
Mr Sanders's supporters, who have vi-
sions of tuming Texas and Arizona Demo-
cratic, point to his strength with Latinos as
a reason he should lead the party. The re-
sults on March 17th show that such think-
ing is fl.awed. There are more competitive
electoral-college votes at st.alee in Florida,
where Mr Sanders is much less popular.
such assertions also ignore general-elec-
tion polls, which show Mr Biden beating
Mr Tromp in Arizona, but Mr sanders los-
ing. Besides, Mr Biden's delegate lead now
appears insurmountable. TD win the nomi-
nation, Mr sanders would need to win 64%
of the remaining delegates. He is polling
nationally at just 36%.
The Illinois primary, which Mr Biden
won by23 points, was marked by low turn-~