Back to pencil and paper for 2010 census
Technology problems will force the government to count all of the nation’s 300 million residents the old-fashioned way in the 2010 census — with paper and pencil. This was to be the first truly high-tech count in the nation’s history. The Census Bureau has awarded a contract to purchase 500,000 of the computers, at a cost of more than $600 million. The devices, which look like high-tech cell phones, will still be used to verify every residential street address in the country, using global positioning system software.
The project to develop the computers “has experienced significant schedule, performance, and cost issues,” Gutierrez said in prepared testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee. “A lack of effective communication with one of our key contractors has significantly contributed to the challenges. The computers proved too complex for some temporary workers who tried to use them in a test last year in North Carolina. Also, the computers were not initially programmed to transmit the large amounts of data necessary.
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