Census Bureau To Scrap Handhelds — Cost $3 Billion

GovTechGuy writes "The Census Bureau will tell a House panel today that it will drop plans to use handheld computers to help count Americans for the 2010 census, increasing the cost for the decennial census by as much as $3 billion, according to testimony the Commerce Department secretary plans to give this afternoon."

Promise and risk of electronic census.

[gnutoo]

I've done a census and think GPS enabled devices would greatly increase accuracy but it will also greatly increase costs. A sad fact is that people don't really go all the places they are supposed to go and honest enumerators don't last long in places that stick to quotas. GPS and time tracking devices will prove that the enumerator actually visted each and every place they should have. A mashup with something like Google maps will show if areas have been neglected. An honest census will take significantly more manpower than the one we have now.

There are, of course, the same kinds of risks we have seen with electronic voting. The only solution is to be as transparent as possible. Non free software is a no-no.

Re:Surplus

[d3ac0n]

I don't think they ever bought them. The cost difference is related to the extra time and manpower that a paper census will take vs the costs for an electronic one.

Personally I think this is a good thing. Better to spend money to do things the tried and true way than to experiment with a "hi-tech" solution that may or may not have exploitable weaknesses in it. We've all seen how faulty the electronic voting machines have been, I think it's wise that the census folks don't want to go down that road.

Kudos to the Census people, and to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Neb) for supporting and encouraging their wise decision.

OMG! That's 3 days of Iraq war spending!

[Reality Master 201]

Stop the waste now!

Just ask the CIA or NSA

[robipilot]

Can't they just ask the CIA or NSA for the census information? I mean, they're already tracking the snot out of us anyway. Hell, they may know how many kids I have better than I do.

Re:Surplus

[d3ac0n]

(BTW, does everyone now have hideous Reply to This buttons on their comment display or do I need to refresh something?)

I've got them too. Big honking balloon-ish grey buttons. I don't mind buttons, but it would be nice if they used the same buttons as the "Post Comment" form "Preview" and "Submit" buttons. Those are much nicer.

Re:$10/person ?!?

[trooper9]

It costs $10 _per person_ to count us? That's unbelievable. Perhaps if they just count people (as the Constitution requires) rather than gather race and demographic information, they could cut their costs.

If they did that, there wouldn't be enough information to allow groups to claim "victim" status for whatever social variable they perceive that sets them apart. Remember, the census does more than count, it helps us cordon-off certain groups on our Level Playing Field.

Re:$10/person ?!?

[eln]

I bet if they just gave everyone $5 as an incentive to self report, you could get more accurate results at half the cost.

Re:Surplus

[MightyMartian]

Generally when you are trying out new technology, you choose a few locales to be testbeds. That way you can determine whether or not the technology will work as advertised, and if it does, it gives you a chance to correct any bugs. To go out and buy three billion dollars worth the equipment and then decide that it doesn't work suggests to me that there are some severely incompetent people at the top of the chain.

I feel the same way about voting machines. Test them out in a few places, get to know the equipment, and if you still figure it's going to work, you have a place to go. But this mass exodus from one system to another is just lunacy.

Re:Bzzzt, wrong!

[azadrozny]

He points to a dress rehearsal held in May 2007 as when "development and scoping problems emerged." The bureau then identified "more than 400 new or clarified technical requirements," he said, which were delivered to Harris on Jan. 16.

It appears that the government shares some of the blame. 400 new/modified requirements tells me they didn't have good idea of what they needed the system to do. A system is only as good as the specification provided.

Re:OT: Anyone have a link to the old /. CSS?

[default luser]

Yeah, you know that the new discussion system is totally broken on IE6. Of course, I knew this six months ago when I elected not to test it, and since then they have fixed nothing.

What's with the duplo-block-sized titles, do we suddenly have armies of babies and old people reading the site?

And to stay on-topic: my stepfather was working for the census while they considered this transition, and it was the most painful decision they had to make in all his years working there. Digitizing something as flexible as paper meant that you actually HURT efficiency of data collection. Think about it: with paper, you can easily correct mistakes, skip questions (or go in a different order). Most important: with the computer, you're SOL if you drop the computer or the battery dies, or the software crashes.

And while digital data collection reduces costs at the back-end (the data is already digitized), the fact is that collecting the data is the most expensive part of the census process, and any increase in costs there erased the gains at the back-end.

Re:Why aren't the vendors ever responsible?

[Mr.Dippy]

You just described Accenture's business model

Re:Bzzzt, wrong!

[spun]

Nice try, but where does it say the government screwed up? "400 new or clarified technical requirements" does not mean "the government missed or mis-stated 400 requirements." It could mean, for instance, the government added one new requirement and clarified 399 requirements the contractor had gotten wrong.

But more than likely the gist of what you and the other folks who responded said is correct: both parties probably made mistakes. I'm just tired of this cynical, "The government always screws up and wastes our money but corporations can do no wrong" attitude I see among online libertarian types. It seems like an attitude designed and marketed by some PR firm trying to sell the idea of doing away with government and privatizing everything.

That, and nuance always gets in the way of a good rant.

Re:OMG! That's 3 days of Iraq war spending!

[Archangel Michael]

We're not at war with Iraq.

So, I wonder who we're at war with.

Re:$10/person ?!?

[Tridus]

But why is most of that necessary?

If you simply mailed every household a short form with the questions that they could return with free postage, you'd get most of the same people counted, at far less cost.

Actually having people go door to door to do this seems pretty archaic.

Re:Surplus

[timeOday]

Personally I think this is a good thing. Better to spend money to do things the tried and true way than to experiment with a "hi-tech" solution that may or may not have exploitable weaknesses in it.

I can't imagine WalMart, or any other successful business attempting to do inventory (yes, that's what a census amounts to) purely on paper because they can't get their act together, or have money to burn. This is just as frustrating as the IRS refusal to offer an official free tax filing website. $3 billion extra dollars! All for a census that's riddled with extra transcription errors and will obviously be entered into computers in the end anyways, to be of any use at all.

Re:Census? Just count me out.

[bberens]

If a significant proportion of people withhold their details, they have no right to complain when there aren't enough schools or hospital beds or even houses in the right places. How else are governments supposed to get demographic information?

When the teacher:student ratio starts creeping up, build more schools. When the doctor:patient ratio starts creeping up, build more hospitals. That's the beauty of capitalism. Supply and demand sort of sorts itself out. Oh that's right, you've socialized medicine so some bean counter gets to decide how many doctors per citizens are sufficient. Good luck to you.

Re:Census? Just count me out.

[stranger_to_himself]

The thing is, race does matter, and you can't make racism go away by pretending it doesn't exist, or saying it shouldn't exist (which of course it shouldn't). Issues do affect different racial groups in different ways. By denying this you prevent the application of solutions where problems arise, making them far worse.

sudden outbreak of common sense

[plopez]

Basically they did things right.

1) They tested 3 years in advance.

2) When it became apparent they were no where near ready (approx. 400 new requirements) and that with the new reuirements, plus testing and training they would not meet their deadline they pulled the plug.

Now if only the private sector would learn this...

Re:Census? Just count me out.

[greyhueofdoubt]

Why is that so upsetting to you? Gross estimations of your ethnicity can be made by simply looking at you; if you leave your house, your ethnicity is essentially public information, right?

I think that in progressive societies (societies w/o genocide, for example), understanding population characteristics, race included, could be a very useful thing. For example, finding out that one county's minority population is 13% below the poverty line, while another county's rate is only 5%. It would be useful to know that situation even exists; then, you can try to find out what the difference is and try to help the situation.

There is a happy medium between affirmative-action-type policies and nothing. It is useful for sociologists to have this kind of information.

Unless you're the tinfoil-hat type, in which case I just wasted 5 minutes. Then OK, yes, they're out to get you.

-b

Re:Census? Just count me out.

[Immortal Poet]

If you're not racist, then race should NOT matter at all. Anything less makes you racist to some degree.

It is absolutely ludicrous to purport that someone becomes a racist by acknowledging the mere existence of race. Being aware of the differences between different groups of people is one thing; believing those differences makes one group better than another is what racism really is. Don't be naive enough to get the two confused.

Re:Surplus

[sumdumass]

If you have been paying attention, the current cost overruns of developing a competent system was somewhere around 12 billion dollars and counting. This decision dropped that pay to .5 billion which means that their favorite contractor lost out on a lot of money.

It is likely that they are going to continue with the current contractor and just spread it over a lot longer time in an effort to save money and let hardware develop to a point of performance per dollar spent that makes it less expensive.

Re:Census? Just count me out.

[trolltalk.com]

Why is that so upsetting to you? Gross estimations of your ethnicity can be made by simply looking at you; if you leave your house, your ethnicity is essentially public information, right?

Let's see ...

When you buy something at the store, you're standing in line with other members of the public, so your purchases are essentially public information, right?

When you take a book out of the library, your reading tastes are essentially public information, right?

When you visit a hospital or clinic and are sitting with strangers in a waiting room, your medical problems are essentially public information, right?

When you take a book out of the library, your reading tastes are essentially public information, right?

When you pick a dvd off the shelf to rent, your viewing interests are essentially public information, right?

When you shop for groceries, your eating habits are essentially public information, right?

When you buy a present for that someone special to surprise them, your purchase is essentially public information, right?

So, where do you draw the line?

For example, finding out that one county's minority population is 13% below the poverty line, while another county's rate is only 5%. It would be useful to know that situation even exists; then, you can try to find out what the difference is and try to help the situation.

There is a happy medium between affirmative-action-type policies and nothing. It is useful for sociologists to have this kind of information.

So you would make it that aid to help people escape poverty should be targeted by skin colour, rather than need? Come on, poor is poor - when you're broke, hungry, and homeless, your skin colour doesn't make your stomach growl any less.