Let the Census count begin

The 2010 Census count kicked off in Alaska on Monday when Census Bureau Director Robert Groves arrived in Noorvik by dogsled with state officials and delivered the questionnaire to the town's first Census taker.

While this is a face-to-face meeting in a town north of the Arctic Circle to generate publicity for the Census in the country's biggest state, this year's Census will begin arriving in most people's mailboxes around March, with an April 1st due date.

And while the Census is not an online count for 2010, there is plenty of high-tech to make sure it becomes one in the near future, including a database that will impact every state for federal money. The complex database is the pillar of the campaign to get an accurate count of the U.S. population.

Groves, in a recent appearance at the Pew Research Center, said the database is essential to encouraging different population groups to complete their Census forms.

The Census will put data on its website tracking the response rate as Americans start to mail back their forms in late March. The database is available on the Census 2010 toolkit page.

For more on the Census:
- see this Pew Research Center blog
- check out this USA Today article

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