How the Census Shapes Politics: Send Us Your Questions
Tell us what you want to know about what it took to conduct the 2020 census, and how its data influence political power.
| August 18, 2026
News broke this month that the Trump administration is working on a plan to order the Census Bureau to exclude undocumented people in 2030, a move President Trump already pushed for ahead of 2020 as a way to skew redistricting and subtract congressional seats from states with large immigrant populations.
The push is yet another reminder of how the decennial census matters to politics. In preparing for it, public officials make countless decisions on what they’ll measure, and how. Where do they count college students or incarcerated people, for instance—at their dorms and prisons, or at their prior address? Do they ask about citizenship, which may scare many people from participating?
By shaping the results, these choices also affect political representation. Census data is used to apportion congressional seats, guide redistricting, and steer government funding.
In her new book “Data Are Made, Not Found,” danah boyd, an ethnographer and professor of communication at Cornell, unpacks how this pivotal civic exercise shapes our democracy.
In the runup to the 2020 census, she interviewed hundreds of civil servants as they dealt with budget constraints and the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it much harder for census workers to conduct their usual face-to-face interviews and collaborate with community organizers.
Boyd has now agreed to answer questions from Bolts readers about what she learned while writing her book—what it takes to conduct the census, and how it influences politics.
So, we want to hear from you. What do you want to know about the census’ inner workings and why it matters to representation?
Are you curious about how the census shapes redistricting and the distribution of power? Have you wondered how public officials seek to influence it or civil servants prepare for it?
Let us know what’s on your mind, and boyd will respond to many of your queries as part of our series “Ask Bolts.”
Share your questions with us in the form below by Friday, August 28. And remember: all questions are welcome. Nothing is too in the weeds for Bolts!
