Census Challenges

Challenges to Population Estimates

The total population estimates prepared annually by the U.S. Census Bureau may be challenged by states, counties and incorporated places under the provisions of Title 15, The Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), Part 90.

• If a governmental unit wishes to challenge a population estimate prepared by the Census Bureau, the governmental unit's chief executive officer or highest elected official must initiate the challenge process
• The Census Bureau requests that challenge packages be received no later than October 1 of the year in which the estimate was released.
• In any instance in which a local government and the Census Bureau cannot resolve a challenge through the informal procedures, the governmental unit may file a formal challenge

More information about challenges to population estimates is on the Census Bureau's Web site at  http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/challenges.html

Challenges to Decennial Counts

Challenges to census 2000 counts were allowed until September 30, 2003 under the U.S. Census Bureau's Count Question Resolution (CQR) program. The CQR program accepted three types of challenges from local and tribal governments:

• Boundary corrections for functioning governmental units that were legally in effect on January 1, 2000
• Geocoding corrections to put housing units and associated populations within the correct boundaries
• Coverage corrections to add or delete specific living quarters and the people living in them that were identified during census 2000 but erroneously included or excluded due to processing errors

The Census Bureau did not collect additional data as part of the Count Question Resolution program; it used only those data that were already collected as part of the census.

More information

Information about the CQR program:

• http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/CQR.htm

To see corrections to Iowa counts, choose one of the following files:

• Census 2000 corrections (.pdf file)
• Census 2000 corrections (.xls file)