2020 Census

The Charlotte City Council and Mayor Vi Lyles discussed Monday night the need to delay the 2021 election until 2022 because of delays in releasing new data from the Census Bureau.

The Trump administration tried and failed to accomplish a long-held desire of immigration hard-liners — a count of unauthorized immigrants to reshape Congress, the Electoral College and public policy.

The U.S. Census Bureau said Wednesday that the data used for redistricting may not be released until the end of July. That data will be used to draw districts, and could leave the city of Charlotte and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board with a difficult choice: Press ahead with elections with old maps? Or delay elections until 2022?

Trump officials had directed the Census Bureau to use government records to produce data that a GOP strategist said would be "advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites" during redistricting.

President Biden has revoked Trump's policy of excluding unauthorized immigrants from a key count that the Constitution says must include the "whole number of persons in each state."

The opinion said the case was "riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review."

Concerns about the accuracy of the census after Trump officials cut the count short have led to calls for a do-over. But the proposal comes with major legal, financial and logistical complications.

The legal fight continues over whether President Trump can alter numbers that set up the next Electoral College map, and there's a question of whether Congress will give more time for quality checks.

The justices will hear oral arguments Nov. 30, increasing the potential for Trump to try to omit unauthorized immigrants from the census numbers used to reallocate House seats during his current term.

The Trump administration asked, and the Supreme Court allowed, for a suspension to a lower court order that extends the census schedule. The move sharpens the threat of an incomplete count.