Stacey Abrams touts 2020 census despite COVID-19 at NPC Virtual Newsmaker

Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s first major party African-American gubernatorial candidate, reminded a National Press Club online audience Wednesday that the 2020 census, even during a historic pandemic, helps determine how much funding each state gets and how many seats in Congress for this decade. The census, she said, gives Americans political and financial power.

“We have to have an accurate count,” she said during a Club Virtual Newsmaker event, and must dispel fears that census forms can be harmful. They can’t. “Information is confidential and safe,” she said.

Because COVID-19 halted in-person census-taking, Abrams wants Americans to complete census forms by mail or online, or by phone: Go to my2020census.gov. or call 844-330-2020 to fill out your forms.

Since 1790, the United States had counted people and, by law, their information is confidential. Abrams and Club President Michael Freedman, who introduced the former Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives and conducted a Q&A, touted the decennial census for helping deliver billions of federal dollars into states and communities for roads, bridges, hospital beds in times of crisis, Pell education grants, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Children's Health Insurance Program funding.

“[T]he federal government will rely on the 2020 census data to help guide distribution of approximately $1.5 trillion in annual spending, including Medicaid, direct student loans, highway construction grants, low-income tax credits and loans, and much more,” Freedman said, as he introduced Abrams. The census is in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution because it is to be used to apportion House of Representatives members among the states, an important function.

Undercounting is the biggest challenge in the census, Abrams said.

“It’s not a count of citizens it’s a count of residents," she said. "This is a count of who’s here.”

If the U.S. undercounts children, classrooms are overcrowded, schools are underfunded. But Abrams praised the U.S. Census Bureau for raising people’s awareness of the census despite what she characterized as insufficient funds allocated. .

Changing subjects, she said voting by mail is her priority, “the gold standard” during the pandemic, especially when people have to stay home. But return envelopes must be postage-paid, online voting is necessary and expanding registration times is vital, she asserted.

“We can either allow politicians to choose their voters or allow voters to choose their leaders,” she said.

Abrams cited a “deeply troubling” comment she said President Trump made on Fox and Friends earlier this week: If states were given adequate funding to support elections by mail and to expand voting access, “Republicans would never win another election.”

When a president believes that “gaming the system” is more important than giving active, eligible voters a chance to vote, it’s deeply troubling, she said.

After losing Georgia’s 2018 election for governor by slightly more than one percentage point, she founded Fair Fight and Fair Count. After alleging gross mismanagement of the 2018 gubernatorial election by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, she vowed to ensure every American has a voice in elections.

Through Fair Fight 2020, she led a project to fund and train voter protection teams in 2020 elections in 20 battleground states. She’s also leading a lawsuit to overhaul Georgia’s election system, arguing that citizens’ ability to vote in 2018 was impaired, depriving them of their constitutional right to vote.

Citing a recent Urban Institute report, Abrams said that in 2020, they expect about 1.7 million black people and 2.2 million Latinos will not be counted in the census, along with large numbers of Native Alaskans and American Indians. That results, she said, in almost $8 billion lost to those communities over the decade.

“I think it’s essential to have a woman on the ticket,” Abrams responded to a Freedman question. “Women represent more than half the U.S. population, but they are an essential part of how leadership happens. I’m very pleased my name has been included in the conversation…. I’m a patriot. I believe in serving my country.”

The governors of Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina, she said, deserve praise for taking executive action to close their state’s gap in social inequality.

Freedman is linking the theme of why journalism matters to Club activities this year. He asked Abrams to address that topic.

“Journalists are intercessors to insure the average person knows what’s real, what’s true,” she said. “Their job is to be truth-tellers” even when we may not always agree with how they tell it.