Not a huge deal, I think, given the sheer numbers we’re talking about — the Census Bureau has 250 organizational partners soliciting one million applicants for 140,000 jobs — but combine this with The One’s tentative efforts to assume greater control of the census and we’re looking at hours and hours of rich bloggy goodness next year when the inevitable stories about lost forms and miscounts start to appear.
“It’s a concern, especially when you look at all the different charges of voter fraud. And it’s not just the lawmakers’ concern. It should be the concern of every citizen in the country,” Rep. Lynn A. Westmoreland, R-Ga., vice ranking member of the subcommittee for the U.S. Census, told FOXNews.com. “We want an enumeration. We don’t want to have any false numbers.”…
“The Census (Bureau) is a nonpartisan, non-political agency and we’re very dedicated to an accurate account,” bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner told FOXNews.com. “We have a lot of quality controls in place to keep any kind of systemic error or fraudulent behavior to affect the counts.”
Buckner said the bureau received an overwhelming number of qualified applicants — more than 1 million — for the 140,000 census taker jobs filled to complete the first phase of the effort. Each applicant, he said, must take a basic skills exam, which includes reading a map and entering data into a handheld computer. Applicants are also subject to an FBI background check, he said.
But Buckner acknowledged that it is difficult to track an applicant’s political background.
“I have no way of tracking any of that information,” he said. “If somebody comes in to a position with a political agenda and their work exhibits that, there are rules against that,” he said.
Good thing ACORN doesn’t have a political agenda. Exit question: Given how many other partners it has, why would the Bureau invite the appearance of impropriety by hooking up with a group as tainted as this? Their latest, greatest hit, you’ll recall, was breaking into foreclosed homes to reinstate the former owners, a practice they admit constitutes trespassing. Does Buckner want to spend the next year being asked about stuff like that?
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