 I'm Marcia's joiner and are you, if this is your first or like me your eighth time to be counted, it is most important to be counted. So today we are going to talk to one of our favorite people and you know we only talk to favorite people Charlotte Poe and she is one of the team leaders for the 2020 census. Now of course with the coronavirus lots of things have changed, the whole world has changed. So we're going to talk to Charlotte about what is the census and how the coronavirus has changed the way it is counted. Not that it's every one still has to be counted. Like I said either if you're first or like me your eighth time to be counted it you must be counted. So Charlotte is going to talk to us today about what little things have happened, how the census is moving things around to be sure again that you are counted. George Charlotte, Aloha my dear and I am so pleased to have you add to talk to us about the census and what if anything we can expect in the way of changes. Thank you for having me on your show today. It's very important like you said that we all get counted and participate in the census 2020 that is here already. So just a little bit of background right we had our first census the United States in 1790 so it's been around for a very long time and they used the census as a means to figure out where our population is. It's a population count and a household count. One just to simplify it is so that we can make sure resources go where they're needed and decision makers know where our people are at and then at the congressional level our census count is used to determine the number of seats we have in the House of Representatives. Then on the state and even our county levels it's about how redistricting happens and how hundreds of billions of dollars come down from the federal level to the state levels and then get distributed across our counties and then into our communities where we really need them for students for education for Kupuna programs for Medicare and Medicaid right our first responders and emergency services. Our simple participation in answering the questionnaire helps to inform all of that and these are resources that all of our communities need and can use especially now like you mentioned with what's going on that our communities our states even the nation and globally is seeing with the COVID-19 pandemic. So for the census what we've done is there's two key principles that drive us right now. One is that the health and the safety of our staff and employees and especially our communities is imperative right so we've taken steps to safeguard our health and safety. The second principle with that we still have to deliver our census population our census numbers and that report at the end of the year to the President of the United States all while still abiding by our mandate to count every person once only once in the right place right to make sure our counts are accurate so we get the right amount of resources and representation in the places that they're needed and then on the ground just to share with you a little bit about how it looks like for us here in Hawaii on our operations all the field operations have been pushed back about two weeks except for self-response. Self-response it opened uh March 12th when people should have started seeing the mailers come in and that is one of the primary ways that we are encouraging everyone to respond social distancing at its best go online if you're able to or you can call in as well. Well I did get mine in the mail and responded immediately and it was like what two three minutes didn't take long to fill it out and I was impressed with the questions um it and and I'm I'm sure this is the first time but it asked if if we were married and if it was the opposite sex uh partner or whether it was the same sex partner and I thought wow that's never been asked before but how how wonderful to think it all the way through that everyone regardless was counted. I was really impressed like I said this is my eighth time to be counted and uh yeah you know anybody that's listening eight times tandy plus so anyway uh I was impressed with how thorough the questions were but how simple it was to go yes no yes no it was really went very well so so I was I'm I'm pleased um the reason I wanted to do it right away is so we so I would have a sense of what I'm talking about when I talk to you what was the questions and I'm sure it didn't take me five minutes to to fill it out and on the darn it I put it on the form they give you a code number and you fill in the code number and and then the rest of the page page comes up I thought that was so good a way of counting and so that you don't get duplicates I'm I'm sure there will be duplicates but so now it says it didn't say to me didn't have my name on it but it had a postal so that now you'll have to explain that one to me about the postal service and then it says it counted everybody in the household so what does the postal service mean yes I'll show you mine yes so it doesn't come right address to the person's name it comes addressed to residents so it could be anyone yes who lives in that household it could respond for the household let's go directly online we can go directly online even without that household ID that's printed under attached to your physical residence address if you go to my 2020census.gov that will take you straight to the questionnaire and I'm sure what you noticed also Marcia compared to some of the other questionnaires and censuses you've done is it's actually a lot shorter this time right it is not as it's not as comprehensive or long anymore and then if you don't mind I'm also give you the phone number and the list okay yeah the list of ethnic the different choices oh my goodness all of the different choices of of what again and this plus this plus this you know in the ethnic yes yes so I'll come back to the phone number but the ethnic groups right that helps to determine what ethnic groups live in different regions or different areas and helps to inform some of the programs that oversee funding right so census just collects data right and over and for anybody's been listening to me for the last who knows how long the importance of having a another seat in the congress congressional district now for any for it's right now as we speak we still have the same amount of representation in the congress that we had when we became state and we had grown exponentially and now he's divided into two congressional districts cd1 which is congressional district one which is urban Honolulu the rest of the state is cd2 so that's rule local as well as all of the neighbor island right does that really doesn't really so yeah that's a little bit challenging right if our neighbor islands have historically been hard to count right as well as some of our rural areas so one of the primary initiatives that we enacted especially for here in Hawaii was to reach out to our hard to count communities our native language islanders those who take a second English as a second language or it's not their first language and then also right neighbor island neighbor islands have high rural residences and they also don't get counted in the regular self response they get packets delivered to them which has impacted right COVID-19 has impacted our field operations for that however like we spoke earlier right one of the ways that they can still respond is to go online to my2020census.gov and you can go on even without the letter or you can even do a phone call to 1-844-330-2020 and you can complete your questionnaire that way what this does and speaks to what you're mentioning Marsha is that if we did see a large increase in our census count right the possibility does exist that we might be able to get a third seat in the House of Representatives there's a formula they use right I'm not in that's not my forte however I know there's a formula that they use by taking all of the seats divided by the 50 states population etc etc okay there's a report on this but it exists right we don't know because we really don't have an accurate count for Hawaii right now but you're right if we could this year do it right yes and especially on the neighbor islands like I said there's certain communities that are hard to reach unless you're going door to door to door and really uh and you know we talk to people on the big island and they're having trouble just with cell phones connect yes but let's internet and right with this new I don't know how you're going to do that with the the coronavirus and going door to door is that going to be is that going to be a problem I presented really but it has right it has definitely posed a challenge for us operationally and um some of the ways that we've looked to overcome this is we connected with our partners right away and looked at contingency plans right the first go to is to take everything online do virtually but we also know and we just spoke about it that connectivity for internet as well as cell phone service is also um a challenge for our more outlying rural areas on our neighbor islands especially right so we had depended a lot on community events like some concerts festivals and fairs things that would draw community into one place a communal gathering and with COVID-19 that mixed all of that plans right so we have been working with all of our partners from grassroots organizations of family foundations churches fake based organizations all the way up to the larger or non-profit organizations and service providers the trust and businesses to reach those in our communities that we otherwise would have tried to engage during the gatherings right so grocery stores people still go to the grocery stores so we're reaching them DOE is doing grab and go meals so we're working with them to get reminders in for the parents posting up banners and posters right it's we're kind of really going back to like old school a lot of word of mouth and being connected via the phone if we cannot do virtual online or if it's not via the phone right it is coconut wireless in much you know very much scaled down we're not doing the 2550 people right it might be the smaller families and one person one person passing it on you know so old school with new school technology I guess a good say but you know I think that's good because people have more faith in a person they know in terms of answering these questions and I think that that makes it very personal rather than just going online and trusting that it'll go somewhere where if you like you're saying if it's grab and roll or whatever this is it's a very personal thing and I think people then have faith that that this is real and that it is working and honestly I think you're doing a great job and we are just out of time it's always a pleasure and so I promise Annie we will see you back next month thank you so this is going so thank you Shannon just a pleasure meeting with you and we'll see you soon thank you so much be sure you still ask your form go online pick up the phone any way you can do this call your relatives on the native island be sure that you tell them answer the sentence thank you so much loha see you next time