The success of the 2010 census hangs on a risky switch to handheld computers

[The Straight Story]

The success of the 2010 census hangs on a risky switch to handheld computers.

The risky idea for changing the way the Census Bureau gathers the most consequential data about every American sprang from the mind of one man: Jay Waite.

In 2001, shortly after the bureau had cleaned up after the 2000 census, Waite, then head of the decennial census program, was convinced the bureau had to alter the way it conducted the 2010 count. The cost of the 2000 census had topped $6.5 billion, doubling from 1990, after adjusting for inflation. Initial estimates predicted the 2010 count would nearly double that, to $11.3 billion. The 2000 census also had come under sharp political criticism, with Democrats, local government officials and minority groups claiming it had undercounted minorities and low-income families.

It didn't take long for Waite to come up with an answer: use handheld computers to replace the paper-and-pencil method of collecting data from Americans who have not sent in their forms and move the costly and cumbersome long form, which has more than 40 questions, to another census survey program. "This idea, as it were, of going to automation and handhelds came out of my brain," he says.

He surprised himself. Waite describes himself as a farm boy and Luddite. But he says his transformation occurred during the 2000 census as he heard "more and more talk about cell phones and handheld devices. We tied our horse to that fact, and I bet that the technology would come to me."

http://www.govexec.com/features/0707-15/0707-15s2.htm