Chris Brown: The National Conference of State Legislatures headquartered in Denver. She's been with ncsl for 10 years at first. Wendy specialized in research and analysis on elections issues such as voter registration voter ID voting technology and more
Chris Brown: Then when the added redistricting to her portfolio building ncsl decades long tradition of
Chris Brown: Providing objective bipartisan information and analysis on redistricting bar and processes. This year, she's overseeing the 2020 edition of the redistricting redistricting law book, also known as the red book.
Chris Brown: This book is considered the book of record for we just redistricting is across the nation. Most recently, Wendy has become a census observer as well. And she reports that she never dreamed it would be as fascinating policy topic as it has proven to be
Chris Brown: So with that, I'll turn it over to Wendy
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well, thank you, Chris. And thank you, Kate. One thing about being invited to do this was the the invitation came before coven hit, hit
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And Chris told me that it was going to be a virtual meeting and I thought, Whoa, that's going to be pretty wild.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well, turns out he's had a thing or two to teach me about virtual meetings, which is something ncsl is starting to do too. So I've actually benefited a huge amount from his professionalism.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And it turns out it's possible that kayden I've connected in the past two
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Before I came to ncsl I was freelance writer and I lived in Boulder and I use the government docs section of Norland library on a fairly regular basis. So I have you in my case, when I think about all the audience today. Um, let's see. I'm going to share my screen.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Hope that everybody sees my my cover slide here.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: But I'd like to comment on is that I am a Westerner, I really appreciate the young
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: I was born in the east and moved out here. A long, long, long time ago 45 of my 62 years have been in Colorado. This is where I want to be and I
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Appreciate that you all have found common ground amongst yourself. So I appreciate that. So I do want to talk a little bit about the job that I do at ncsl and what ncsl is and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Here we are. That's our building in Denver our headquarters is in Denver. That's to make it clear that the National Conference of State Legislatures is not about the DC beltway we are out here in the West.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And we are on what I think of as a shrinking island of bipartisanship.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Or we could call it a shrinking island of non-partisanship there is a bit of a difference. And I think you all might be living on the shrinking island of non-partisanship to and by that I mean we have a
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: gale force winds of partisanship beating at us from one side or another.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Almost every day and I'm guessing you are to have people are wanting to have their opinions backed up with the data that you can provide. So it's tricky.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Tricky to bring and I appreciate that you all are doing it as well. But I think you might be sort of professional cousins to us.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Because the part of the work we do at ncsl is to answer questions that come from our constituents and our constituents our legislators legislative staff. We also inside lots of questions from other people as well.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And I think that you get this too. And people say well I google that and blah, blah, blah. Well, we all know that Google and getting some good stuff. It might tell you what hours I shop is open, but it doesn't
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Always answer. The real question being asked. So I've got a couple of questions that have come in, literally, the last week to me, that I thought would be a Western
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Kind of work we do. So here is a legislator, who I knew a little bit. And he asked, Did we have any information on the most common types of voter fraud from across the country.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well, when we saw that question, we realized that a voter fraud is in the eye of the beholder.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That it's not like clearly defined topic. And so instead of saying why here's this great report, we called him up so we can understand what it was. He was asking.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And he wasn't as it turns out, asking about the likelihood of people impersonating other voters at the polling place.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Which is vanishingly rare virtually never happens. He was asking about the way
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Absentee ballots are handled and is there a way that somebody else could split one. So by calling him and understanding what is need was we were better able to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Be responsive. I'm guessing you get that kind of thing to that the first time somebody asks a question. It's not really what they need or want. They just having a hard time expressing it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And here's just one more. This person asked us about cost estimates for statewide election on it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: This one, we do have a web page risk limiting audits and we were able to send him that plus the nation's manual on how to do these and give him the phone number for the nation's expert on it. So this question was explicit enough that we were able
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So,
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: What I was thinking about on January 1 was the 2020 was going to be a great big year for me and ncsl
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And I said, Okay, I'm going to have to make my resolutions and I ended up making just one and that one resolution was to stay calm and that has been a helpful resolution to kind of keep my eye on ever since.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And it's sometimes hard coded and some other things that have happened this year.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: But I thought to myself, if I can identify what I'll be focusing on this year. That will be great. So what I thought. On January 1 I focus on was election security.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Running to in person meetings for legislators and legislative staff on how to do redistricting and tracking 6000 legislative races that will take place in November and truly, I thought, Okay, those are my high priority things. Well, what happened.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: We all know what happened coded it things changed everything was different. Now I want to say that my own personal life unhealthy and my family's healthy and I've still got my paycheck. And so I do count my blessings every single day.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: But we know that legislators and policymakers and workers in a different areas are in all kinds of tunnels and we get some of that tunnel because of the changes that Copa has not
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So, um, this is now what my brain looks like, more or less, I just have a scramble the things that people are concerned about or I'm concerned about. And what's going to come up and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: All these things that are sort of in the postcode world and nobody can work when their brain feels like this. So again, like I did on January 1
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In about April 1 I tried to reorganize my brain. And I came up with what I call the mechanics of democracy.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And I said to myself, if I'm working on elections or I'm working on census or I'm working on redistricting.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: I'm working on democracy. So if I can focus on those things that would be great. And if I'm doing anything else. I'm probably on the wrong track. Professionally speaking
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So what I did was the organized today's conversation with you with these three things in mind and this three separate chunks. And what I'd like to offer is that I'll take questions after each chunk.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Do feel free to put them in the chat box. I'm not going to look. Now Chris is handling that for me just fine. And I look forward to some conversation and I want to serve know how these things might intersect with your life. And I'm going to start with elections.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: On the elections, friends, we used to talk about voter ID and these to talk about
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Voter registration in fact voter ID was the hot issue in 2012 voter registration was the hot issue in 2016 and I thought a cybersecurity would be the hot issue in 2020 that's not really the case, instead what we've got is that the hot issue is male and absentee voting.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It just this week I've had at least three people to reporters and the constituent asking what's the difference between male and absentee voting and you've probably seen some of this in the press.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: For our purposes, we have used for quite some long time the mail slash absentee voting phraseology that way for the states that say we have vote by mail.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That works in the states that have absentee voting that works as well.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So on this map, you can see that there is a Western trend when it relates to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Mail and absentee voting. Let's look at what we've got here the orange states are those that already prior to 2020 had decided that they would run all of their elections through the mail.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That is to say that they'll send the balance to all active voters at the beginning of each election, the voter doesn't have to request it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And so those five states have already determined that was the way to go. For those of you are from Oregon that you know that you were number one in this in this trend.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And Hawaii was the most recent to adopt this. So, then we've got the blue states and we've got to California, Nevada and Vermont over there.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Those states have decided that the November election this year, they will send balance to all active voters, they have not made a policy decision that will last throughout time it's just
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That they made that decision for this year and then the two states in yellow, Montana and Arizona. I wanted to just mention those because over 70% of their voters are already using absentee
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Ballots and their interactive permanent absentee list where they just asked wants to always get a balla
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Or they request a ballot down and regular basis. And so you can tell that people in the West are far more likely to use a male slash absentee ballot than people are elsewhere and the other states that are nearby us
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Are also once with high usage, maybe not quite so high as Arizona in Montana. So you might ask, why is this, and it's not entirely clear why is one reason might be that we have more than expanses and it's hard to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Put up polling places when they might be 2030 miles from people. So a lot of people who live in rural areas may find this to be useful.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So the conversation. Here's a way to show the change and the amount of people using absentees.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: What we're looking at here comes from the MIT election data science lab. And it was just posted last week, so it's brand new. It's only looking at primaries and that's comparing the primaries from 2016 to 2020
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The access on the up and down access is zero percent of people voted absentee or male and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Up to 100% did. And on the bottom. We've got states and they only did the states that have had primaries this year there were some reasons why some states are included some
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: For instance, the states that have the primaries yesterday, are not included.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And on each of these. There's a line. You can see it more clearly on the ones on the right, the bottom. The blue button is where they were in terms of absentee ballot usage in 2016
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And the top of the line kind of an orange is where they were this year in 2020 so the ones on the left, New Hampshire, of course, kind of its primary before
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The coven had yet so not surprising, they really didn't have much change from one year.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: From four years ago to now and how many people voted on absentee ballot. But as you move towards Michigan. That's kind of Midway
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: 310 you all of a sudden start to see this huge shift. And why did the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Voters shift they shifted because there was concerned about going into polling places and the States made it
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: easier for them to be able to get an absentee ballot. So what I'd offer here is that this is about change in policy, a little bit, but it's mostly that change in how the voters chose to respond to elections.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: An increase in nam voting throughout the nation, not just in the West.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So there's many upsides to this one is the turnout. Generally speaking, is thought to increase when you do this, I mean, you put the ballot into the end of the motor instead of having to go get it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Voters to take their time, many of you in the Western States understand about a
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Booklet that comes out from the state that tells you about all options and you can read that up and vote on your breakfast table it
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Can be good to be a little more informed.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Once it's instituted in the states that we saw in orange before it's usually cheaper than running a polling place based election. And of course, there's no exchange of droplets or aerosols in
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Your living room that you wouldn't otherwise have. So the more secure from a public health perspective during the primaries.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Probably now that we know that go over this year for a good long while to come
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Also true in November. But as you can imagine, there's also some downsides to using all male elections.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And one is that if the person hasn't signed the back of the envelope in the proper manner, there's a problem. They can't open the envelope unless they know that it really came from the person that's
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So in the states that use a lot of this. They literally look at every single
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Every single signature and compare it to signatures on record and technology can help with that. But it is basically bipartisan teams are the deciders
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Also once ballot is opened and removed from being on hello if it has an error. Let's say people checked it instead of filled in the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Bubble than
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That race can't be counted. And that's a disappointment. If you were a casting that valid in a polling place you take your ballot and put it through a machine which would say we can't read this. Do you want to redo it. And you'd have the choice to redo it or not.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: But you don't get a choice. Once the balance removed coming on board and also certain groups of people and even Americans are
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Prominent among these have difficulty with male balancing partially because of their access to postal services shared postboxes often long ways from home election results might be delayed in states where you can not only
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: vote by mail, but it can be postmarked by Election Day and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Counted than three, five even 10 days afterwards. You can see how a huge influx of absentee ballots can slow down with accounting and that's a good moment to just say,
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: We're all in this mode where we think we're going to get election results on election night and it does not have to be that way. And it shouldn't be that way. We want to count all the balance and then get the final official results.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: What's released on election night or unofficial results and it helps if we can let the whole world know that those are unofficial there are complete results coming down the road. After all, these are counted
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So when you hear the pros and cons, maybe the best approach is to have
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The pro choice when it comes to voting, and that would be to have a hybrid election system.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Do keep some in person voting and that's happening in every state even the states like Washington where it's very limited in person voting. There is still that opportunity if there's a problem for
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Voters on election day, they can go get it solved and throughout the nation, everybody is working super hard to make sure that they have co workers. And you can imagine some folks might not want to serve.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And that they have polling places that this year, probably senior living facilities are not a good option for
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Holding a polling operation, they're providing P for everyone. And they're changing their processes. And so I would say that I think that there's been so much done that polling places are going to be fine too, as well as the mail. Mail an option for voters.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: ncsl we get called by individual voters who are saying I can't get my ballot. I don't know how to vote.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And that is not our function. We are there to serve legislators and legislative staff. But if we get a call from a voter who's confused. Of course, we help
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And I am wondering whether you get that too. I know public libraries, which is a little bit of a different audience, they are
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Helping voters left and right to understand things if you are in that position to I've asked Chris to put a couple of resources in the chat box that could help.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: With answering their questions. But the short or long, short of it is they need to go to their local election official to be able to get the right and true.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Information and then that does bring us to the misinformation that is out there and when it comes to voting. There are many affiliations by parties or by others. There's the people who just want to sow discord. There are distortions, there are
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: On winning mistakes being put out on social media and all of it as a bit of a challenge on how to use
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Respond. How do we make sure that the right information is up. Okay, so what is the right information. It's the information that comes from your election officials and most of the nation.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Elections are run at the local level, but you can get good information from the state level as well. And on this. I am interested in what you're experiencing with misinformation on any of the work that you do as well.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And that's where I'd like to stop talking about elections personally and hope that you all have some questions for me. And let's let's see what comes up for you all about elections, and I'm going to take my slides down temporarily. I hope I will bring them back.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So there is
Chris Brown: Anybody have any questions for Wendy at this point.
Chris Brown: I put some links in the chat box that she passed along to me earlier.
Chris Brown: Well, I'm sure that we can save questions till the end. So if you want
Chris Brown: To do.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That. Thank you.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: I am going to share my screen again hope it works as well as it did the first time. Here we go.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: What I've been told us that adult learners do best when information is in 10 minute chunks are smaller. So that's where I'm breaking it up, it gives us a chance to use a different part of our brain. So we'll just go on and take questions when they do arise.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Okay, so now we're going to talk about the census.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And my guess is that you already know a huge amount about the census because I'm guessing you're diving into it on a regular basis to get information from
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Your what you call them, you're not constituents, not your members who are users. That doesn't sound quite like your teachers.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So I'm guessing you know a lot about the census and use it more. So then I do. I know it primarily from the perspective of redistricting. So it's a little different than being a regular everyday.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Daily. These are, but I do need to say that the Census Information the census.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Data that comes out both from the decennial census and from the American Community Survey. It is foundational it is foundational for the distribution of $1.5 trillion
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In federal funds every year to the states and it's foundational for our democracy, which we'll talk a little bit more about, as you know,
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It's foundational for any of the research that's been done in corporations or otherwise around the nation and whether those are business people. Researchers at universities.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Or government researchers, they're all using that data. And so with something that important. We'd like to think of it as an administrative function. Let's just do it right.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Turns out there's all kinds of discussions about what does it mean to do the census. Right. And we'll look at a few of the things that can be
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Concerns
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It's getting headlines this year. This is so unusual for the census to be getting headlines. It's not necessarily good but behind the headlines. There are a whole lot of workers and here's one of them. This is my husband Brian Underhill he is a census worker.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: He, he's out in the field right today. He's been trained for the next
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Operations called non response follow up and he's been trained online as you might imagine.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: He was trained in early March when pivoted and he was literally in the field with his
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Cohort and their trainer and they got the trainer got a call from someone at HQ say stop. Ringing doorbells don't don't remember about and he was
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Employed out in the field for about two days before he got the call themselves saying stop going in the field at all. We don't know what we're doing. Yet, and there were delays and then he got back in the field using
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Down he that that that's a mask with a friend of ours made fun now he uses a government issued ass.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So I just want to say that he's working hard for you. And so is our friend James whitehorn who is the head of the redistricting and distribute
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: redistricting data office at the Census Bureau, there he is the definition of what is competence and commitment and I just so like having the opportunity to work.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: With him. So when I think about these people out in the field or at headquarters, who are doing their very best. I just want to say I'm a huge supporter of the census. And in fact, here's my senses button. I work today. So we all know that I'm a census.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And if the results of the census end up mired in courts, it will not be because the staff working on problems with it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Having said that, what we got to think about is what is the quality of the data that comes out of census and of course before I was in this from a policy point of view, I just thought census data.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Stone tablets above. But no, they go out and they collected and there are data quality questions and always have been about the data.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: When you're talking about data quality. You guys probably know this. There's completeness, consistency conformity accuracy integrity and timeliness and all of these things sort of
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: When they're gathered together. Did you the quality of the data. And I think it's too easy to say that we're going to wait for perfect data. We can't let
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Perfection get in the way of good enough. And so I put up here, three things that are
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Question marks, I guess, in terms of data quality for the census and I'll go through those one at a time.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So on delays. When I first prepared the slides. I had a slide about everything's going to be
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: delayed by three months for field operations and four months for data release. Well, this week, that's no longer true. So it's a little complicated, but before Coleman
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The field operations. We're going to end on July 31 and the first data was going to be released on December 30th.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And because of coven, not surprisingly, the Census Bureau said we kick out and feel
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: They said, We need to extend our field operations until October 31 and they asked for permission from Congress to delay the apportionment the first data release until April 30
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And now just literally this week, the Bureau said, nevermind. We don't need that delay, we can get the data COMPLETED BY DECEMBER 31
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And we're going to show it. Now our field operations to September 30. So in the end, this means that there's less time being spent in the field gathering information from folks and you all probably responded to forms that came
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In the mail to you or you got a postcard and responded online. I can easily imagine that if we were to pull you all that we find out that there were
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: 95% participation in the census already
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well, that's not true around the nation. What we've got nationwide. Is that 62% of households have responded that means 38% of households have not responded. This map. The green is the good, the higher response rates and the red album lower response rates.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Just a moment to catch up with nearly are here.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So you can see that there's kind of a Western trend on the red, but I think that that's maybe an artifact of using a geographic map. And we have a counties that are very large in the west and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Have a huge amount of terrain, but not as many people. So in a sense that represents what's going on in rural America.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Nonetheless, it is a concern for people who live in western states that there are a lot of people who haven't yet responded. And who are those folks. Well, it's
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Immigrants. It is people who are homeless. It's people who moved frequently like my daughter's where, where were they on April 1 is the question. When did they get contacted at that point.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: lower income people are less likely people who live in rural areas and Native Americans. These are all groups that have been identified as part account. That's the official place for it now states have been putting a lot of money into
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The census outreach and that's a little unusual this decade 10 years ago, very few states. I'm sure to put money into encouraging their residents to get counted this year 47 states created a
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Complete count committee and most of those put some money behind it so states have a role, but really is a federal function to do this activity and for, I don't know whether you guys get encouraged to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Participate in outreach. But if you do when you need any information on that. I'm happy to provide because I'd love to see as many of those households do their own response or
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Get talk to you at the door as door knockers like my husband come to the door, by the way, he hasn't done his first door knocking and say, let me fill out this form for you. That is probably happening, one week from today.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And what happens if people don't respond wealth of your kind of fills in THROUGH THE OFFICIAL WORD IS invitation.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: What might be estimation would be another way to say it. So it doesn't mean that they won't be counted that we will have a smaller population, but some of the account will be based on inference and not on data collected
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So from that perspective. I want to move on to my. My second concern for data quality and that is disclosure avoidance or differential privacy.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Background on this is the federal government is required to protect the confidentiality of all of the respondents. And of course, we all want that we do not want to have personal data floating around, avoiding disclosure is a good thing. It's thumbs up all around.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: At the same time, we do need
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: To have accurate data. And if you take confidentiality and put it with accuracy, they unfortunately are have some tension, one way or the other more confidentiality means less accuracy and usability.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And the Census Bureau to figure out this decade in between 2010 and about 2016 that the system that they have used to provide
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: disclosure avoidance last decade and the decade before could be broken. So they came up with a new system which is called difference and privacy or noise and actually noise is a term that the Census Bureau uses I got the slide from them. So to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Ensure that the privacy is maintained. They take
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Left, you might say that's their raw data that they collected in the field. And then they treat it with differential privacy and you get the data on the right.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So you can see that there's a 14 in the upper left box on the left set of data. And there's a 13 in the upper left box on the right hand side.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And you can see a 64 in the lower right box on the left and a 65 on the other side. So they just changed data as they go along and it should balance out, but it's not a direct swap of one for another it's it's
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Done with some stuff that I can't begin to understand. And in fact, I recommend that you all ask your state demographers for a little to know what is this all
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: State demographers have been amongst the heavy users of census data and we've often from their own analyses of what differential privacy means for their states and some of them are very concerned that it's going to come up with some
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Patently common sense wise on reliable numbers.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: We go.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The numbers that will be secure will be accurate are the state total population.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That we've been assured by the Census Bureau beyond or below that at any geographic level, there'll be some distortion and that distortion.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Will be greater in rural areas that will be in urban areas and it will be greater for smaller racial and ethnic groups that it will be for larger
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Ethnic groups. So for instance, the National Congress of American Indians is quite concerned about this because they
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Are would what they've been able to see so far about the data they're concerned that they might have some populations that are you might say almost erased from from the data. The Census Bureau is
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: acutely sensitive to the concerns of data users on this, and they've done all kinds of things to try to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: get information from data users on what is most important, but what they found is that
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: With that trade off one set of data users might want one thing and another set of data users might be looking for another bottom line data recorded by the Census Bureau will be farther from the on the graph reality that it has been in the past.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Whether it will know that care about that or not is another question. And then maybe there's a little hope on this because I sound so grim. I will say that after the euro realized that last October, that the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Outcomes that they were producing we're not up to the quality needed by data users. They've been working diligently on improving the algorithms and improving what they call post processing and so they are
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Aware, and they are trying to address these concerns. I used to have on the slide that the census delays was going to give the Census Bureau more time to work on it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Looks like we probably won't have those delays at this point. So that's often the agenda and then my next is that there are some alternatives and they can use coarsening. So what the heck is coarsening another phrase for and building
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: This image of the cityscape is kind of an example or it's a
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: metaphor for it. It's not a very clear image, but you can tell it's a cityscape. So what's the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Parallel here if you collapse categories in the census our new round information you
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Will have coarsening of data. And the example is, you might decide that instead of needing information on who's 85 to 90 and also who's 90 to 95 years of age, you put those two together, you get a bucket or people 85 to 95 that's a way to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It give some privacy protection and not quite so much of that differential privacy. Of course, if you're a gerontologist you might not like that because the 85 to 90 group might be quite different from the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: 1995 group. And so you might not like that part of the data to the person and literally when I did a dry run through this with some of my colleagues, one of the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: People who works on children and families asked me if that meant that five and six year olds might be lumped together because that has huge consequences for funding five year olds.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Don't necessarily get counted in for school funding six year olds do so if this has real world consequences. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And I want to move on to the third thing and that's who gets counted. I will say that everybody who lives in the United States is to be counted. There is no doubt about that.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: There was doubt, year and a half ago that whether or not citizens would be included in the count. And the answer is yes. Everybody gets counted
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The latest news though is that for the purposes of a portion which is the divvying up of seats in Congress, President Trump about 10 days ago said that he would not be including
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Undocumented immigrants for that one purpose. So, picture that the Census Bureau hands to the president complete numbers of people who live in the United States.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And usually the president rubber stamps in the hands of on to Congress, this time in the White House.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: A calculation or reduction will be made of people who are thought to be a documented immigrants and that's the data that will be handed to Congress for a portion of congressional seats.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: There are all kinds of losses on this and here's what a few other people have to say about it. The National Association of Latino elected officials say the Constitution makes it unequivocably clear that all persons are to be counted in the census for purposes apportionment
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And the Asian Americans Advancing Justice say the census must have an accurate count of everyone living in us.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And the Brennan Center for justice says President Trump is ignoring the plain text of the Constitution, all of which is to say he has
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Identified what his plan is, and it's already important and I ensure that we will see lots and lots and lots from the courts possibly going up to the Supreme Court, but it does have to go through district courts first
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So the one thing we don't want to hear about the census is I just don't know. Is it real or is it fake and that gets right back to that misinformation question. I think for me as a
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Provider of information. My message will be that the census will be giving us the best information that it can those questions about, and then I'm happy to talk with
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: You. But at some point, what they give us is what we get the conversation now is canopy make better with might get more people out into the field to collect information. And by the way, I mentioned the field workers, but there's also all kinds of
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Local and nonprofit groups out there who are helping people fill out their census forms might be easier for someone to feel that somebody in their church or their community.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Came asking for that information and for the census workers. So there's a, like a tag team on that of non federal resources as well as federal resources. And I think that's about the census. Again, Chris. Let's see if anybody has questions at this point.
Chris Brown: Yes, thanks. Wendy, we have a ton of questions.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Oh dear. Okay, maybe I'm ready.
Chris Brown: All right. Let's see if I can go back to the beginning.
Chris Brown: Yeah, I'm very worried that the 2020 census is on track to be so inaccurate that the data is useless. What would happen if the 2020 census fails.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well,
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Weeks ago I would have said, Don't worry, they've got it. Be happy. All's good now I can't quite say that because I'm hearing more rumblings of whether
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The States might look for other data sources to supplement their data that comes from the Bureau or that the release of the data will be two.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Years late because of the ways that might be in the forest or even some people are saying, Are we going to have to redo the census.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: We don't have money to redo the census. So I think maybe where we get is that we need to acknowledge that no data is perfect. The data in 2010 wasn't perfect. This is what we've got to work with. And actually one more thing.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: When the data comes out states have the opportunity to contest. Some of it. They there is a process of post
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Data release process where states can say we have on the ground evidence that you have counted. My community or my census tract wrong. So maybe what that means is that we're really not done with the census until after the data is released and those
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: contests are adjudicated by Bureau.
Chris Brown: Okay, in the follow up to that from another another person. Do you have any states or organizations that are trying to take action on this timeline decision by the census.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Yes, um,
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Yes and no.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: To to make delays Congress needed not and field operations, but in the release of data, Congress needed to approve.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Those delays the cares Act passed by the House in want to say name. Maybe it was June.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Includes approval for those delays and now I hear that on the Democratic side in the house. There is an effort to not just approve them. But to say that they may not release the data until those delayed dates.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Does that make sense. If so, if you say you can't really are. If they ask for permission to not release until April 30 they could still
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Release date earlier than that date, but this new amendment would say you may not release it until April 30 so there is concern on the hill.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: on the Democratic side in the house. What I can't tell you is whether they have equal. Well, I do know that
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Senator Schatz out of Hawaii is very concerned about this issue too. So the Hawaiian delegation is speaking up about this.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And what will what will happen is, whatever the senate puts out in the house puts out, they have to come to terms and will this be a high enough priority for democrats two
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Republicans on it is yet to be seen. And when you talk about states. Some of them might say, we're fine with it. We didn't like those delays. Anyway, those delays are making our redistricting.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Way off target so fine, we'll, we'll take it as is. So there is not one voice coming from the states on how this should be
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: I'm right. This week, trying to gather information from states on what they might think and CCL does have a letter expressing concern about the differential privacy and data quality. We had said.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In that letter that the delays were concerned for us. And now we will, we have the opportunity to go back and say the and delays is also a concern because of data quality.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Of so what you all can do is get in touch with your state demographer get in touch with your legislative leadership. Get in touch with the governor and if you have concerns asked them to take them forward to your congressional delegations.
Chris Brown: Okay, another question. Do we know if differential privacy if or how it will impact redistricting.
And
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Yes, the numbers will come out my numbers will be what they are. And unless the State wants to contest them or if a one party, but presumably the minority party wants to contest them. We'll just use those numbers for redistricting.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: We won't in an odd way we won't know any different unless you go out and count that census bureau yourself. You can't say how it went wrong.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Was problematic is that you'll know that the block doesn't look like that, but you'll have to use the data that you've got. So I think we're just going to go forward with the census data, unless there is a lawsuit that says it is so far off from accurate that it can't be used
Chris Brown: Okay. And another question here.
Chris Brown: If the election put someone else in the White House and the census is still being calculated which numbers will be delivered to Congress for redistricting, the lame duck executive or numbers direct from the census.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Um, if President Trump continues and isn't stopped by court he will produce numbers on December 31 even if he's a lame duck president
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Let's say we do have Biden when Biden can try to undo that. But that is in uncharted territories. I am so I really can't tell you. I think that's what attorneys are making the big bucks for right now.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Once you send a portion of it numbers can be they'd be done. And another question would be,
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Does the congress need to accept those numbers as, as provided to them. So I'm going to give it 6040 will use. I'm going to give it 7030 that will use the full numbers in the end, but in meantime, there's a lot of tumbles about which way that will go and if there's a delay in
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Providing the data, then of course the new president would be the one who pass it on. And I think we can be honest that politics is behind at least a good portion of the decision to speed things back up again.
Chris Brown: Okay, thanks for the that's pretty much all the questions we've had a very active chat. A lot of them being comments and URLs. But I think we're good for you to continue
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: All right, great, thanks for this great questions. I'm going to try to share. Again, we go
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Okay, so we're gonna move on to redistricting.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And this. This is the third and final session and it's a good follow on from
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Talking about the census. I will say it doesn't really fit our 2020 timeframe, because it takes place in 2021 and a little bit into 2022 and also say that the New York Times has referred to redistricting as a blood sport and when you hold that in my little heart goes be pap
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The first part, I want to mention is that reapportionment which we've already talked about. This is a distinct things from redistricting reapportionment as we've said is the how many
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Seats in the US House do doesn't stay that redistricting, we'll get to in a moment, but people usually like to see what's likely to be coming. So this map gives you the states that are losing in the states that are gaining and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: You can see in general that states in the Midwest, or losers and states in the South and West are gainers some of these states are on the margin, we won't know for real. I mean, this is this is a projection. This is
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Not the real deal yet. We won't get that until the real numbers come out. And of course, depending on which numbers are use those President Trump is asking us, or the phone numbers, a couple of highlights here, Montana is pretty enthusiastic. It's also at the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Cost and may, might not get it depending on how the numbers come through. It also has an active
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Complete count committee so it does want everybody to be counted, so it can actually get its second congressional district. This will be the first time California loses a
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: District and they have put 180 $7 million into of state money into census outreach and yet they are still likely to lose a seat on Texas is a big winner, no surprise, lots of immigration there.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And Alabama is also a custom state right now it's looking like it's sitting tight but if
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Depending on on how things work out. It could lose a seat, and I'll say that it is a state that also put some
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Money behind a state level complete count committee probably based on not wanting to lose that seat. This map with different depending on what
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: What happens with the whole controversy about a portion. So then onto redistricting.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It's a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle in that you're going to end up with the final outside shape. But it's not just that you have to put the pieces together. You actually get to remake the pieces and make them in whatever shape you want.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It is the most political action that a State does. And there are many ways, thousands and in fact really millions of ways to lawfully create a district for a state.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And that's why there's so much argument about it if it's if it's got political consequences, and we know that elections have consequences, and we know that redistricting is the underpinning of elections so redistricting has policy consequences.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So people will argue about it. There's a couple of things that they must do in one is to make their districts have equal population. That's the one person, one vote.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Principle and every but every state must follow that. That's why we do modern day redistricting, and the other is that they can't do racial or ethnic discrimination, with the way they make the the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Mass and every state also has number of its own criteria as well. But it's really those two that come from the federal government that on absolutely must be here to all the others. There's a little flexibility, a little fungibility
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And then I'm just maybe I've already said this, but the outcomes do have policy consequences if the maps are built in a way that are more favorable for one party than the other than they have controlling the legislature.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And then can work on the policies of interest to them. What I like to think is that we just structures can recognize that they want to play for their own team, but that they also don't want to be greedy, greedy gets you in court and greedy gets you
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Discord and fire that you just don't want in if you can avoid it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So who does redistricting. This is kind of the number one question we get asked about and Oh look, there's a Western tilt here to blue. What is the blooming in the states that are blue a commission has the responsibility for redistricting and and all of the other states that is the legislature.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And the legislature is the tried and true traditional in there always done this.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Institution that does redistricting, and I am here say that I think they are perfectly capable of doing a great job of them, they
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Collaboratively a legislature knows every nook and cranny of a state every Val and every mountaintop, and what are the communities of interest in that they are able to speak for all of them if they
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Are willing to have both parties have a role and you can have both parties have a role if one
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: legislative chamber is helped by one party. I'm fine. Either or if the governors of another party or if you just have some folks in leadership who say, hey, we don't have to take it all. We can we can watch out for interest but not not take it all.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: On those conditions, mostly in the West, as you see, each one is different and many of them are tied to the legislature in one way or another.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In Montana. For instance, the Commissioners have legislative addresses. So after they got appointed, they were given legislative addresses and they have full support with legislative staff.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In Washington and Idaho and Hawaii, the legislative leadership appoints the members of it and in
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Arizona, the legislative leadership can take people out of the pool, you might say. So there's oftentimes a some cooperation between the conditions and otherwise.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: One more thing to mention is that many of the States, although not all have used the citizens initiative to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Create their commissions and we have thought that 2020 would be a big year for those kinds of initiatives and there were groups forming up in Oregon and Nebraska in South Dakota and Arkansas Nevada to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: seek a shift on the ballot to create a condition and Oregon is the only one that is still alive and if we've got an word Gander
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Oregon person in the audience, and they can tell me what the statuses. That would be great. I think it's I think they've got the right number of signatures, but that there was some legal issues about whether they'll be on the ballot.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: The point is Koba changed redistricting by people couldn't get out in the field and collect signatures to promote these citizens initiative. So we have pretty much steady state from
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: There were several states, but made some changes which I could go into, but probably not not important to do it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And then the last thing about redistricting that says were important to me is that because we distributors are mostly legislators.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: We wanted to look at how many people are elected in 2020 who will still hold those seats when redistricting takes place and it's about two thirds of the people who will do redistricting and 2021 2222 are actually elected in 2020. Some have already been elected.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Will you're years but most of the people who will have a role are being chosen right now.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So that means this 2020 election. You think of it as a big presidential you're gay. Yeah, that that bends. They but this is one time in 20 years is when the rigid structures are elected the same time that the president was elected and
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: It has consequences for the next 10 years and so I'm very excited about watching the elections.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: This year, and I think that's where I'm happy to answer anything on redistricting or about politics. I did put a couple of slides down the bottom that I wasn't planning on sharing, but I'm happy to talk about politics if anybody wants a little something on that.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Let's stop sharing for a moment.
Chris Brown: All right, a couple of questions for you. This question comes from me actually on your origin.
Chris Brown: Lou map, you mentioned congressional districts and legislative districts. So I'm assuming congressional districts. You're talking about the federal congressional district and legislative districts, is that state.
Chris Brown: Yes. Okay. We just oh I just got it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Okay. Oh, no, no. Now I'm in the wrong place all together him now. Guys, ah,
Chris Brown: Yes, well that one. Here we go.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: There we go. Okay.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So legislators read district for their own state senate their own state house and for congressional
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Districts and it's fair to say that local jurisdictions, if people are elected by district and like many
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: municipalities have city council members elected from a geographic area those really need to be redistributed to and that often gets forgotten and those
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Local folks don't necessarily do the redistricting. That should be required, but it is they could be sued if they have restricted in a while for us ncsl the big three are US house seats state senate State House.
Chris Brown: Okay, thanks. That helps clarify my question now. We have a few other questions. How does one get on one of these commissions.
Chris Brown: And then is there a role for non elected Members.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well, so each one is unique.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In several of the states the legislative leadership appoints people, in which case it helps if you're involved in the party, but in California. There was a very extensive process for anyone in the state to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: put in an application, saying, they'd like to be a commissioner and then that's judged partly on suitability by
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: My think it's the State Auditor in California and they then put people in three pools. One of them is Democrats. One is Republicans. One is people who don't affiliate with either of those two parties and then they
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Literally pull out of a hat 60, I believe, and then they send those 60 to the legislative leadership, who can say I'm making up this number, it might be five these five we want out of the pool, and then they pull again.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: To choose the actual Commissioners for the first, I believe, eight of them and then those eight full from the rest of the pool to get their final six more Commissioners, so that they have diversity.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Ethnic diversity regional diversity and I'm not quite sure what so there can be really Rube Goldberg like mechanisms for choosing who's on the conditions, Arizona. It's not quite so bad but but similar Colorado is a lot like California
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Montana, Idaho, Washington legislative leadership, so it's it's a mixed bag. If you want to do it.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Send me an email and I'll tell you what's up in your state.
Chris Brown: And I put Wendy's email and cell phone number. Wow, that's brave of you, I put it in the chat box as well. One more question. This is an election question.
Chris Brown: Okay, since has ncsl been tracking the reports of post office procedure delays that could impact the delivery of ballots in November.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Um, yes. I don't have any more. I haven't personally done data collection on this, but again, a month ago, I would have told you that the Postal Service has a firm policy that all election mail will be delivered, whether it has a stamp on it or not, they weren't trying to
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Encourage people to not put
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Stamps on
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Election mail, but they understood how important it was. And so they have a commitment to getting a push forward. However, just in the last month. We've heard
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: That the new Postmaster General is saying we don't have the money to pay overtime. We can't assure the the
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: timeframes that we usually use and that has election officials concerns throughout the nation that male in both directions. Both outbound to the motor and back from the motor to the election that office could be problematic.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And on on that. I guess I say if I were of our. Am I would drop off my ballot instead of mail it back. That way you know that it got to where it needed to go in many of these Western states have drop boxes and you can always take it to an election office and handed in
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: And I'd also start my planning early. How am I if you need to request a valid. The sooner you request it like today, go ahead and request a ballot and they'll mail it to you on the early end of the processing instead of otherwise.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: So yes, it's an issue.
Chris Brown: Thank you. Any other questions. If you could put them in the chat box, Wendy. I just want to say this has met and exceeded by far. All of our expectations. I know I and I know that most of the people on the
Chris Brown: In the session here heavy users of ncsl website for all things state related and national issues as well so
Chris Brown: Thank you so much.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Oh, I'm very happy to do it. I guess what I'm been thinking about is that
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: In this era when data is has become political it's great to be with this group of people who understand data share data and can do it in a non partisan way and support they
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Support the use of data in all of our public life. So I was thrilled to be invited them very glad to be here. So,
Chris Brown: Certainly, certainly turned out differently than we were planning back in January. But that's for sure. Thank
Chris Brown: You thank you for rolling with the changes and everything like that. We were originally envisioning a University of Denver a meeting where Wendy would come in person to a live audience, but we would also simulcast it to the zoom session, but now it's entirely zoomed so
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: You know, in the end, I think we're never going to travel like we used to, I think you all were
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Leaders of the pack on moving to virtual meetings. I just can't imagine ncsl or any of it sister organizations are going to be as dependent on airplanes and the hotel conference centers in the future.
Chris Brown: Well, thank you so much, all the accolades are coming in through the chat. Everybody feels that was a very helpful and amazing and timely session. So thank you so much.
Wendy Underhill, NCSL: Well, you're very welcome, and good luck to you all. I hope the best the conference is super spectacular. I looked at the agenda I looks like you've got great things and I'm happy to be in touch with anybody who wants to be in touch with me.
Chris Brown: Thank you. And again, I did put her email and even cell phone number in the chat. So that will be there and the recording will be up by tomorrow. Great. Great.
Chris Brown: Okay, thank you.
Chris Brown: Kate.