[droithomme]

I got randomly selected for the long one in 2010. There were several questions I was not able to answer but providing incorrect information is a crime and not answering is a crime. So I did nothing. They sent one or two threatening follow ups. Then an in-person enumerator showed up and ran me through the short-form questions only, which was fine.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

It may be technically illegal, but when I worked for the 2010 Census we were told that it's fine if someone doesn't want to answer a question, and that's what I told people when I interviewed them.

According to this article, no census failures have been prosecuted since 1970.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/381254-answering-the...

[crooked-v]

> providing incorrect information is a crime and not answering is a crime. So I did nothing.

The correct answer in this case is to say "I don't know". You can write in stuff on census forms and it's up to the local office to process those as special cases.

[droithomme]

That's not something they say you can do.

In my case the correct answer was to do nothing, then cooperate with the enumerator on the short form questions, which as I said was fine.

[oceanghost]

I had the same thing happen. I sat down to do the long-form and it asked fairly invasive questions like what chronic diseases I had, and IIRC even how many sexual partners I'd had.

I pitched the thing, but they came to the door several times until I did the short-form.

[karatestomp]

Oof, yeah, I'm not filling out something that invasive. They can serve a warrant to Google if they need info like that about me.

[burkaman]

You might be thinking of 2000, there was no long form in 2010. Could you not answer because you didn't know, or you didn't want to answer those questions?

[droithomme]

OK, thanks, I managed to find the form they sent me. It was the Census' American Community Survey, which claims "Your Response is Required by Law". I agree that cooperation with the decennial census is required by law to the extent it collects ages and citizenship status of household individuals, but I do not agree that the Census clause of the Constitution authorizes the collection of the American Community Survey information, which is vastly beyond the scope of Congressional districting needs. The claim that my response is required by law is fallacious and is worthy of being challenged in court.

> Could you not answer because you didn't know, or you didn't want to answer those questions?

Didn't know many. Didn't see how the Census clause authorized the collection of personal and private information they were demanding I turn over accurately under criminal penalty otherwise. Not knowing was sufficient to not be able to respond.

[crooked-v]

> Didn't see how the Census clause authorized the collection of personal and private information they were demanding I turn over accurately under criminal penalty otherwise.

It's a law, not part of the Constitution.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/13/221

(Section 3571 and Section 3559 amend the penalty from $100 to $5000.)

> demanding I turn over accurately

Note the "to the best of his knowledge" in the law above.

[wl]

I think the point was that the law, as applied to the ACS, does not fall under enumerated powers of the federal government, nor could it be reasonably seen to fall under the necessary and proper clause. The census? Sure. But not the ACS.

As someone who was sent the ACS and started to fill it out before abandoning it because the government has no business demanding answers to some of those questions, I felt violated. Then the Census Bureau harassed me. And then nothing came of it. Shame on them.

[lonelappde]

Politifact couldn't find evidence of prosecution for lying or refusing since 1970.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jan/09/us-census-...

[crooked-v]

From what I understand, the illegality is mostly used as (a) a tool to increase the baseline number of responses, and (b) to by consequence make it illegal for anyone else to force someone to not complete the survey for some reason.