Paper forms first go out to rural areas or areas with a sizable elderly population. Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers, your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work. Online InstructionsMost people with a permanent residence will receive a letter in the mail that includes simple instructions on filling out their questionnaire online. **You cannot use a pencil to fill out the paper form; you must use a blue or black ink pen. And there have been attacks on other countries’ censuses before. This accounts for ~4% of people. You enter your address and if the address is verified you will be able to fill out the questionnaire online. How to make sure the 2020 census counts you, This story is part of a group of stories called. That letter will instruct you to go to www.my2020census.gov, click “start questionnaire,” enter your census ID, and then answer all the questions about your name, address, who lives in your household, etc. You can complete your 2020 Census questionnaire either online, by phone or through the mail. It will come in one of these four ways: 1) They will send out online invitations only, at first, for urban areas with easy access to the internet, where they expect most, if not all households will be able to complete the questionnaire online. Why we ask this question: The goal of the 2020 Census is to count everyone just once and in the right place. To sign up for updates, please enter your contact information below. Roughly 22% of all people contacted will be in this category, where you will get two letters and can choose either method. An election year. If you’re still lost, the Census Bureau also put out a very detailed video on how to complete the online census that might help: Hopefully, the online census will be able to handle large amounts of traffic. The Census Bureau is bound by law to keep your information confidential. Census workers compare images taken 10 years ago with recent ones; if there’s a significant difference (new streets or homes added or removed), field workers are sent to check them out. More details on that just below. People who identify as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be any race. Most U.S. residents are contacted by the U.S. Census Bureau by a letter in the mail in mid-March of 2020. This question identified the next person to refer to in the following questions. The Census Bureau is also working with the Department of Homeland Security. Rented? Why we ask this question: This enables us to create statistics about males and females, which can be used in planning and funding government programs. What did work were the GPS-equipped devices field workers used to verify addresses before the census forms went out. And you will use that number to login to the online questionnaire. The deadline to deliver each state's 2020 population count is December 31st, 2020. The 2000 census also had an online response option, but it wasn’t publicized. Now, in 2020, the plan is for the majority of responses to come through the online form. While the pandemic has made it harder to do a lot of things, filling out your census form doesn’t have to be one of them. 4) They will send out bilingual paper questionnaires and bilingual online invitations to areas with limited internet access and a sizable Spanish-speaking population. October 15 is your last chance to fill out the census — online, by phone, or by mail. Hispanic origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person's parents or ancestors before arriving in the United States. Most everyone gets a letter from the US Census Bureau to fill out their questionnaire in mid-March (between March 12th and March 20th). The envelope used to hold the invitation to respond to the 2020 Census. 2) They will send out a paper questionnaire and an online invitation to any area they believe has limited internet access, or has a sizable population of senior citizens. But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources. You can complete your 2020 Census questionnaire either online, by phone or through the mail. Here, you counted everyone living and sleeping in your home most of the time, including young children, roommates, and friends and family members who are living with you, even temporarily. 435 U.S. House of Representative seats are divided between all 50 states following every Census, proportional to every state's share of the national population. The Census Bureau says it’s taking cybersecurity precautions seriously; it’s partnering with the private sector including Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program and using Amazon Web Service’s cloud service to store the data (hopefully having fixed some of the security issues that were identified by the Office of the Inspector General).