Bureau officials officially kicked off their 2010 count of Americans this week, urging everyone who is asked to fill out a census questionnaire to do so. We join them in that plea.

Conducted every 10 years, the census is more than a curiosity, telling us how many Americans live where. It is critical in the realm of politics.

Population numbers are used to decide how many members of the House of Representatives are allocated to each state. Minnesota is in danger this year of falling below the population figure needed to keep our eight U.S. representatives. It would be a shame to lose one because some people didn’t want to fill out a form.

Here within our state, the numbers also are used to set district boundaries for state legislative districts.

Census figures have a concrete, dollars-and-cents importance, too. They are used to determine how federal funding to localities and states is doled out. The more residents a city or state has, the more federal money it can receive.

That makes it critical that accurate counts be made by the Census Bureau. That can be done only if everyone contacted, by mail or in person by a census representative, responds to questions honestly and quickly. …

The Journal of New Ulm