Calendar quirk means virus deaths won't be seen in census

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https://hosted.ap.org/article/85b9759f5a1dbcf8d9ca14f551088abc/calendar-quirk-means-virus-deaths-wont-be-seen-census

Feb. 6, 2021 10:50 AM EST
Calendar quirk means virus deaths won't be seen in census
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press

Because the start of the pandemic in the U.S. and the April 1 reference date used for the census fell so close to each other last year, the deaths that began in mid-March will not show up in the state population figures that determine political representation in Congress.

The timing will paper over the losses from the virus, which has killed around 44,000 people in New York state, including concentrations in some New York City neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Alabama has reported around 8,000 virus-related deaths.

New York still is projected to lose at least one seat, but the quirk in the calendar should ensure that the state gets the last of the 435 congressional seats by a margin of more than 20,000 people, and that would save it from losing a second congressional seat, said Kimball Brace, a redistricting expert at Election Data Services.

The division of congressional seats is sometimes decided by relatively small numbers — just thousands or even hundreds of people.

Both Brace and William Frey of the Brookings Institution predict that Texas will gain three seats, Florida two seats, and an extra seat each will go to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon.

On the flip side, Alabama, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia each stand to lose a congressional seat, according to Frey and Brace, though Brace estimates that New York could lose up to two seats.

The loss would be a first for California, the nation's most populous state.