The Census Bureau Is Overrun With Staffers From a MAGA Think Tank
The US Census Bureau is facing scrutiny after hiring staff from the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank, to produce reports on noncitizen voting. Critics and employees fear this move could compromise the integrity of census data for political purposes.
Why it matters
The potential politicization of the Census Bureau threatens the accuracy of data used for congressional apportionment and federal funding allocation.
In August, the Census Bureau published an anonymously authored report titled “Noncitizen Voting in the 2020 Election: A Beginning Analysis,” claiming to show that thousands of noncitizens voted in the 2020 election. A WIRED investigation revealed that the report appeared to employ faulty methodology, casting its conclusions into doubt, and that two of its authors work for the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank with deep ties to the Trump administration. Now WIRED has found that the two authors are part of a larger team, made up almost entirely of AFPI members, who have been detailed to the Census Bureau and given access to its data.
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