• Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        If your serious, it’s something we do every few years to see how many people live in the US (like how many people live at your house), what race and gender you all are, income and that sort of thing. Basically it just gives the government a general idea of how many people live in the US, whether or not they are citizens and other social and economic shit. You fill them out anonymously and it only effects general population reports and stuff, it doesn’t really effect you personally. It’s pretty much only used for statistical purposes.

        I think the MDHS one is Mississippi child support and this “sovereign citizen” is a deadbeat parent (surprise).

      • expr@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        Out of curiosity, does your country not have a census? I would have guessed every country does to have accurate information about their populace.

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          In my hellscape there are three sources of information about who lives in country

          1. Registration in police
          • They also issue internal pasports
          • I think foreigners register there too
          • Their registration is used by election committees
          • Registration is based on place where you live(permanent for your home and temproary for stuff like hotel, camping site, prison…)
          1. ЗАГС
          • Civil registration?
          • They give birth and death certificates
          • They also keep track of citizenship
          • And marriages
          1. Census
          • They knock on doors and write whatever what said by people
          • They ask foreigners only 7 questions and 33 questions for citizens
          • If you say you are unicorn mare from Equestria they will write that here lives unicorn mare from Equestria
          • It is used to get factual information about what people live here
          • They don’t ask pasports or any other document

          Participating in census is not mandatory here. If you make census mandatory it will probably be no better than existing beaurocracy and defeats purpose of getting on-ground truth.

        • DampCanary@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Sorry, yes it has every 10 years, it’s just english is not my native langusge and I never used(heard/saw) census so I was confused.

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            How? Is it China? I can’t imagine real digitalized census without China level of surveillance.

            • limelight79@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              I, uh, happen to be an expert in censuses.

              The US of course tries to get everyone to respond, and sends people out to follow up with people who don’t respond, such as this sovereign citizen in the original post. (The picture is of the 2020 Census envelope and as such is ~4 years old, by the way.)

              Some European countries do an administrative records census, wherein they know who is in the country based on passport control, birth and death records, and so on. These censuses have the (admitted) flaw that someone who is in the country illegally would almost certainly not be counted, but on the flip side they are MUCH cheaper and faster than the US-style census. It’s basically just running an SQL query on the database.

              Other countries do a mix of the two. Even the US uses administrative records sometimes, if good data is available, and they can’t get a response another way.

              The US’s situation is more complex than many countries, because driver’s licenses (which serve as IDs) are issued by the individual states, not the federal government, and relatively few Americans ever get a passport. So, the closest things to a “master list” of people in the US that the government has are things like IRS and Social Security records - but those have flaws, too - for example, they don’t count legal visitors.

              I do not know what China et al do to complete their censuses.

              • uis@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Copy-pasta from my another comment:

                In my hellscape there are three main sources of information about who lives in country

                1. Registration in police
                • They also issue internal pasports
                • I think foreigners register there too
                • Their registration is used by election committees
                • Registration is based on place where you live(permanent for your home and temproary for stuff like hotel, camping site, prison…)
                1. ЗАГС
                • Civil registration?
                • They give birth and death certificates
                • They also keep track of citizenship
                • And marriages
                1. Census
                • They knock on doors and write whatever what said by people
                • They ask foreigners only 7 questions and 33 questions for citizens
                • If you say you are unicorn mare from Equestria they will write that here lives unicorn mare from Equestria
                • It is used to get factual information about what people live here
                • They don’t ask pasports or any other document

                Participating in census is not mandatory here. If you make census mandatory it will probably be no better than existing beaurocracy and defeats purpose of getting on-ground truth.


                I do not know what China et al do to complete their censuses.

                I mean for govt to know how much each ring of hell is polulated and who in fact lives there instead of just registered needs either to knock on the door or spy on everyone. Not that I know what China does for their censuses.