When I heard that ACORN was going to be helping out with the 2010 census, I wasn't overly concerned. Oh, I wasn't thrilled that they were going to get more taxpayer dollars, and as a genealogist, I wasn't excited that an organization with a fictional tendency would be putting this stuff down, but I wasn't exactly fired up. Then I came across a little piece of information that I'm sure I learned in seventh grade and forgot - the primary purpose of the US Census.
According to the Census' website, "the fundamental reason for conducting the decennial census of the United States is to apportion the members of the House of Representatives among the 50 states." That is, the number of people we have in Congress is determined by the census. The district lines are determined by the census. And now we are putting a group that has been charged with falsifying information in several states in charge of collecting information that will determine our representatives.
Perhaps, like me, you will tend to shrug this off. Perhaps you don't see the damage that can be done here. Let's take a visual. According to the census web page, each Congress person represents an average population of 646,952. Now, let's take a big city like Atlanta. The metro area of Atlanta has almost 6 million people, which means that throughout the area, there are approximately ten representatives. Now suppose that as they take the census, they submit several fictional families. We'll be conservative and say they only make up 1/3rd of the population - that's a lot less than their now-ex-employees managed to falsify when registering voters. Bam, suddenly Atlanta has almost 9 million people (what explosive growth!). If all of the fictional people are created in areas that vote primarily Democratic, then suddenly we have 4 or 5 more members of Congress serving in primarily Democratic areas. How does that affect the power?
I don't imagine that even ACORN can get away with creating three million people unnoticed - but just how many can they create to avoid causing a stir? Even one member of Congress serving due to fictional population counts - I don't care if they are Democratic or Republican - goes against our entire system of government. And ACORN is not only in the position to do so, they also have a history - I'm sorry, their employees have a history - of creating people out of thin air.
Please, contact the members of the Congressional subcommittee for the Census and urge them to take this position of power away from ACORN. Let your voice be heard. If you don't, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck may soon do all the talking.
According to the Census' website, "the fundamental reason for conducting the decennial census of the United States is to apportion the members of the House of Representatives among the 50 states." That is, the number of people we have in Congress is determined by the census. The district lines are determined by the census. And now we are putting a group that has been charged with falsifying information in several states in charge of collecting information that will determine our representatives.
Perhaps, like me, you will tend to shrug this off. Perhaps you don't see the damage that can be done here. Let's take a visual. According to the census web page, each Congress person represents an average population of 646,952. Now, let's take a big city like Atlanta. The metro area of Atlanta has almost 6 million people, which means that throughout the area, there are approximately ten representatives. Now suppose that as they take the census, they submit several fictional families. We'll be conservative and say they only make up 1/3rd of the population - that's a lot less than their now-ex-employees managed to falsify when registering voters. Bam, suddenly Atlanta has almost 9 million people (what explosive growth!). If all of the fictional people are created in areas that vote primarily Democratic, then suddenly we have 4 or 5 more members of Congress serving in primarily Democratic areas. How does that affect the power?
I don't imagine that even ACORN can get away with creating three million people unnoticed - but just how many can they create to avoid causing a stir? Even one member of Congress serving due to fictional population counts - I don't care if they are Democratic or Republican - goes against our entire system of government. And ACORN is not only in the position to do so, they also have a history - I'm sorry, their employees have a history - of creating people out of thin air.
Please, contact the members of the Congressional subcommittee for the Census and urge them to take this position of power away from ACORN. Let your voice be heard. If you don't, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck may soon do all the talking.
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