ShareThisVi Demars sent in her census form when she was asked to send it in. So she doesn't understand what happened next.
Why did census workers call repeatedly, wanting to ask her the same questions? And why did they -- or somebody pretending to be them -- ask her such odd questions?
"Are they doing background checks on these people or what?" the 87-year-old Minneapolis woman asks.
She's hardly the only person baffled by -- and suspicious of -- the Census Bureau's decennial count, still very much in progress months after the April 1 official Census Day. The bureau is sending out follow-up pesterers throughout the summer.
"I have my own friends calling me saying, 'I thought I had taken care of this, Gary, what can I do?' " said Gary Van Eyll, who runs the census operation in Minneapolis' western suburbs. "For whatever reason, it didn't get off of our list."
The tail of the census comet is seldom discussed and poorly understood. It has never drawn more suspicion than now, when the dangers of identity theft and the release of private information are so clear.
Top federal officials are warning citizens to be on the lookout for anyone asking anything more than the quick 10 questions on the form. The 10 aren't terribly personal; most likely your neighbors could answer them about you. In fact, they may be asked to if you can't be found or won't cooperate.
But census takers themselves are encountering enough suspicion to make their jobs more difficult.
"A lot of building managers say, 'I can't let you in or tell you anything,' " said Bill Davnie, who runs the bureau's Minneapolis office. "If a unit is occupied, we need to know more than just, 'It's occupied.' "
Barbara Ronningen, of Minnesota's demographer's office, said the late-March mail-back phase is emphasized so much that few people understand the magnitude of what happens in the following months.
Hundreds of thousands of temporary workers flood the streets and phone lines in quest of tens of millions of households whose occupants didn't return a form, returned it too late, reported confusing or conflicting information or didn't get a form at all.
The result is plenty of possibilities for mischief.
"We have gotten phone calls from people concerned that someone, who may not be one of our people," was trying to scam them, Davnie said. "... There's a fair number of folks who are nervous."
Census officials say their representatives do not ask for a Social Security number, bank-account number or a credit-card number. They don't solicit for donations or ask about citizenship status.
The census does, however, run a separate operation surveying a sample of citizens with questions that used to appear on the "long form," including income and citizenship. That operation is called the American Community Survey.
The Census Bureau reported that its door-to-door interviewing, the "non-response follow-up" phase, should wrap up by July 1.
Meanwhile, there's no way of determining what might have happened in a situation like Demars'.
"I got asked, 'Was I ever in jail,' " Demars said. "I said, 'What is this?' I really should have gotten his name, but I never did -- I suppose it would have been fake anyway. I finally said I wasn't going to answer any more questions."
One question on the official census form mentions jail time. It asks if a resident sometimes stays away from home for reasons including military service, nursing-home care or, yes, a jail or prison term.
The more common situation, officials add, is resistance to questions they consider banal.
"Some people this year are reluctant to give us a phone number," Davnie said.
Census enumerators are required to carry an ID badge with the U.S. Department of Commerce watermark. They also can provide a photo ID and phone numbers for the regional census office if asked.
Census workers should not ask to enter a resident's home.
According to the Census 2010 website, census workers also are forbidden to:
-- Contact you by e-mail. The bureau does not conduct the 2010 census via the Internet.
-- Ask for your full Social Security number.
-- Ask for money or a donation.
-- Advocate for any political party or cause.
-- Request PIN codes, passwords or similar access information for credit cards, banks or other financial accounts.
(E-mail dapeterson(at)startribune.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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