 will be around in 10 years? And we want to be ready for that. So we think that the – and we certainly would actually prefer to have the electronic data come directly into our system rather than having them fill out the paper. You have to send it to a huge data capture center, where it’s checked in, it’s scanned, any of the write-in entries is keyed, and then it comes to us.
So actually, the internet and other electronic means can be a big cost saver for us as well. But it depends on a number of things: the acceptance of not only the 19-year-old but the 90-year-old; it has to be easy to use; it should be in many languages; it should be – the important thing is we have to tie each response to a piece of ground, to where they live. So we can’t just say, “Come and fill out the census.” We have to send you an ID, so that we can tie your response to the piece of land that you live, because that’s what needed for this apportionment, for this drawing of the districts, so that everybody has the same number of people in the district. And that means we have to contact you somehow, so I think we’ll probably still mail you a letter, assuming the Postal Service is still around, but we want to move to the internet for many reasons. We think it’ll improve response and it will save money.
One additional question. Do you have some estimate how much money will save using this new form?MR. WEINBERG:
The short form itself? Well -- QUESTION:
And mailing (inaudible.)MR. WEINBERG:
We know because we had to stand up the American Communities Survey itself. That’s roughly $1.8 billion over the 10-year period, so that – there was a tradeoff. We said we’d get more data more often but – and we’ll make the census simpler. So I can’t really point to a dollar saving from just the short form. QUESTION:
Okay. Thank you. MR. WEINBERG:
Yeah. Go ahead. QUESTION:
Jane Morse, IIP, U.S. Department of State. I know that certain ethnic groups weren’t happy that there wasn’t a write-in, a line to be able to have some count on their representation in the United States. So how do you get figures for how many Russian Americans live in the United States or how many Slovakians, for example, live in Michigan? MR. WEINBERG:
Again, that’s the American Communities Survey. There is a question on ancestry on the American Communities Survey. So we have, again, Hispanic origin and race, but then that’s followed by an ancestry question where people can write in the – I mean, we have boxes for the most common but they can write in anything they want there and we’ll tabulate it. QUESTION:
And all of this gets folded into some U.S.-wide calculation? MR. WEINBERG:
We produce data for the whole country every year, as well as for much smaller levels of geography. QUESTION:
Then why do you need a 10-year census? You’re doing – MR. WEINBERG:
Well, the American Communities Survey is just a sample of the population. QUESTION:
Oh, I see. MR. WEINBERG:
And the only way to do congressional apportionment is through a complete census. So it’s a sample, and it has margins of error around every estimate. We could say that New York City has – I’ll pick a number, 250,000 people of Russian ancestry, but it’s somewhere between 220,000 and 280,000, because there’s a margin of error. I made that number up; don’t quote it. You can look it up on the website, and it will have the actual margins of error around that number.
The Census – you can’t say that this block has three or four, maybe five people. You can’t do that. You have to say it’s got exactly 15 people so they can draw the line. There is no margin of error associated with the Census. Now, it doesn’t say there’s no error, because we know we miss people from time to time. We count duplicates from time to time. We know there are errors, but the number is the best number we have, and because it comes from a complete count.
Yeah. I’ll let – you want to follow up? No, go ahead. QUESTION:
Yes. You talk about people who don’t want to be counted, and I assume lots of illegal immigrants don’t want to be counted. So is there – I mean, I don’t know if t