U.S. Census hits a snag by Mark Suppelsa CHICAGO  While filling out his census form, Eduardo Navarro found pages missing and out of order. The Census Bureau admits what happened to Navarro is a nationwide problem, but it doesnt know how widespread the problem is.

NBC 5 was the first to alert the regional census officials that there was a problem.

I didnt find out about it until someone in your office called me to tell me about it, Stanley Moore, the Chicago regional Census Bureau director, told NBC 5.

Some 600,000 callers flooded the census hotline on Monday alone with questions about how to fill out the census.

Navarro said his census form went from page four to page 13, then from page 20 back to page 13.

This is important information, said Navarro. Somebody has to be held accountable.

Moore said a small number of forms were misbound and were mailed out.

If your census form appears to be botched, call 1-800-471-9424. Then give the attendant your control number on the front of your form. You will be sent another census form.

The Census Bureau suggests you call during morning hours to get through. NBC 5 tried at about 7:30 Tuesday night and got through to a human quickly after fishing through the recorded directions.

The hotline operator said he and his nearby colleagues have gotten calls about the problem.

http://www.msnbc.com/local/WMAQ/82374.asp

-- - (x@xxx.com), March 15, 2000

Answers

What absolutely fantastic news !!!!!!!!

Just throw the damn thing away,it's the perfect excuse.This is probably just the tip of the iceberg concerning their ineptness with the census. Let alone that 99.9% of the questions are unconstitutional.

If they had just let the post office do it by the book it would have been alot simpler and more cost efffective.Besides the thing is obviously over alot of peoples heads or they wouldn't have allready gotten 600,000 calls.

Our tax dollars at work.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 15, 2000.

I got a follow-up card in the mail today saying "A few days ago, you should have received a U.S. Census 2000 form..." (yadda, yadda, yadda)

I was thinking that rather than sending a letter a week before saying that I would get a census form, then the form itself this week (I got the short version) and a follow-up card, they should just have put a box on postage paid card asking how many people live in my house. I would have been much more likely to fill it in and send it back. As it is, I somehow "lost" the form they sent me. Damn, what did I do with that?

-- (damn@census.forms), March 15, 2000.