NPR correspondent reporting on how elections, the census, the Postal Service and other parts of the U.S. government work • signal: hansi.01 • email: hwang@npr.org • newsletter: hansilowang.com/stay-in-touch
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NEW: A group of Black Alabama voters led by Evan Milligan say there is no justification in the Louisiana congressional redistricting case for the Supreme Court to reverse its 2023 decision to uphold its past rulings on the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 protections against racial discrimination
2. CORRECTION: I deleted this earlier post because it inaccurately suggested that the friend-of-the-court brief was filed on behalf of 13 former House Republicans. In fact, the brief was filed on behalf of 12 former House Republicans and one former Senate Republican
NEW: 13 former House and Senate Republicans urge SCOTUS to reject "invitation to disrupt our national election system" by self-described “non-Black” voters in Louisiana redistricting case & "avoid invalidating or weakening" the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 protections against racial discrimination
NEW: Four former GOP governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Christine Todd Whitman, urge SCOTUS to uphold its rulings on Voting Rights Act protections against racial discrimination in redistricting "to guard against the harm that racial vote dilution continues to inflict on our democracy"
2. "As commissioners charged with drawing lines on behalf of local communities, we know that we cannot unlearn what we know about those communities — including their racial composition — in fulfilling our obligations," says their friend-of-the-court brief, which cites fmr Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
NEW: Current & former members of Arizona, California and Colorado's independent redistricting commissions say if the Supreme Court were to rule in the Louisiana redistricting case that any consideration of race is unconstitutional, their work "would be embroiled in repeated & protracted litigation"
NEW: In a Aug. 29 letter citing @npr.org's reporting, Rep. Robert Garcia, the House Oversight Committee's top Democrat, asks Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick & Census Bureau's acting director to explain by Sept. 12 whether the bureau's engaging in preparations or discussions for a mid-decade census
2. THE BIG PICTURE: Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act became a landmark law against racial discrimination, legal challenges heading to the Supreme Court could curtail its remaining protections for minority voters
NEW: Two tribal nations in North Dakota have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to fully review a ruling that threatens enforcement of Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters in seven states. That appeals panel ruling remains on hold at least until SCOTUS decides whether to hear this case
2. THE BIG PICTURE: Under President Trump, the Justice Department has stepped away from multiple lawsuits that had begun during the Biden administration to combat racial discrimination in elections as GOP state officials push a novel argument that could further limit Voting Rights Act enforcement
NEW: Judge rejects bid by Georgia’s Houston County to throw out claim that electing county commissioners as at-large representatives of one voting district dilutes Black voters' collective power. Two Black voters stepped in to carry on this voting rights case after DOJ under Trump admin stepped away
3. NEW: Data scientists and advocates at dataindex.us say so far, they have not identified any revisions to Reginfo.gov other than restoring data from information collection requests and the website's commenting feature updates.dataindex.us/archive/stat...
2. I deleted this earlier post because it incorrectly referred to Sept. 2, 2025, as a Monday. It is, in fact, a Tuesday
NEW: As of 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 2, Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data & other information agencies collect — no longer displays a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions." But it remains unclear what changes were made & why
Today is the 12th day that Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data & other information agencies collect — has displayed a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation. The site was temporarily offline on Aug 30.
Article I of the U.S. Constitution: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
NEW: Reginfo.gov is offline as of 9 a.m. ET, 10 days after the federal government's website for informing the public about what survey data and other information agencies collect began displaying a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation
2. Full disclosure: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR. As a NPR journalist, I follow the NPR Ethics Handbook, which says: "When appropriate, disclose funding relationships in related reports.”
NEW: U.S. Postal Service inspector general's office says underreporting of delayed mail by USPS delivery units "may be a nationwide issue" that's making it harder to improve customer service. It also found issues with tracking "arrow keys" for opening mailboxes that could increase mail-theft risk
Today is the 10th day that the homepage of Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data and other information agencies collect — has displayed a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation
2. THE BIG PICTURE: Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act became a landmark law, Republican state officials are raising novel arguments in legal challenges heading to the Supreme Court that could curtail the law's remaining protections for minority voters
On Tuesday, GOP state officials in Mississippi appealed a state legislative redistricting case to the Supreme Court, arguing private individuals and groups — who have brought the overwhelming majority of lawsuits to enforce the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 protections — don't have the right to sue
NEW: In the Texas congressional redistricting case, a three-judge panel has set Oct. 1 as the start date for a hearing on whether to block the Trump-backed map from being used in the 2026 midterm election for likely discriminating against Black and Latino voters www.courtlistener.com/docket/60654...
2. Questions I'm still pressing the press offices of the White House's Office and Management and Budget and the General Services Administration to answer:
Today is the ninth day that the homepage of Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data and other information agencies collect — has displayed a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation
"The most basic act of citizenship is to say, ‘This is what happened. This is who we are,' “ Wright Thompson, author of The Barn, a history of the murder of Emmett Till, tells my NPR colleague Debbie Elliott
2. Full disclosure: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR. As a NPR journalist, I follow the NPR Ethics Handbook, which says: "When appropriate, disclose funding relationships in related reports.”
4. Full disclosure: USPS is a financial supporter of NPR. As a NPR journalist, I follow the NPR Ethics Handbook, which says: "When appropriate, disclose funding relationships in related reports.”
Thanks for reading
Today is the eighth day that the homepage of Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data and other information agencies collect — has displayed a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation
2. Here's the link to the California Supreme Court's announcement: appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.gov/search/case/... And here's the denied request for the court's review: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
BREAKING: California Supreme Court denies request by Republicans to block a Democratic response to Texas’ GOP-led congressional redistricting push by removing a special election ballot measure that would allow the state to bypass independent citizen redistricting commission & use lawmaker-drawn map
NEW: The U.S. Postal Service and the Census Bureau are among the federal government agencies that U.S. adults view most favorably, according to a @pewresearch.org survey conducted this month. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to hold favorable views of either agency
NEW: Louisiana argues using race "in any form" when drawing voting maps is unconstitutional in a legal brief for Supreme Court oral arguments in the state's congressional redistricting case, setting up an argument to end Voting Rights Act protections against racial discrimination in redistricting
10. The Texas State Conference of the NAACP has filed a preliminary injunction motion against the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map:
9. Reps. @crockett.house.gov and @algreen.house.gov have also filed a preliminary injunction motion against the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map:
8. Democratic Reps. @crockett.house.gov & @algreen.house.gov of Texas — whose residences were drawn out of their districts under the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map — are suing over the map (U.S. House members have to live in the state, but not the district, they represent)
Today is the seventh day that the homepage of Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data and other information agencies collect — has displayed a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation
7. The Texas State Conference of the NAACP has also filed a new legal complaint against the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map:
6. The Mexican American Legislative Caucus has filed a new legal complaint against the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map:
NEW: A federal appeals panel has upheld a lower court ruling that found it violates the 1st and 14th Amendments to not count Pennsylvania mail-in ballots that arrive on time but in envelopes without correct dates handwritten by voters
Here's my Aug. 11 thread about this "effort," which Florida's state attorney general announced more than a week before Gov. DeSantis put out that press release:
3. THE BIG PICTURE: Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act became a landmark law, Republican state officials are raising novel arguments in legal challenges heading to the Supreme Court that could curtail the law's remaining protections for minority voters
2. In a footnote of their court filing on behalf of the immigrant advocacy group Arkansas United, @maldef.bsky.social attorneys recommend the 8th Circuit put any decision in this case on hold until after the Supreme Court rules in a case about the private right of action under the VRA's Section 2
NEW: The full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has been asked to review a panel ruling that found private individuals and groups in seven states have no right to sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s Section 208 protections for voters with a disability or limited language proficiency
BREAKING: A state judge has ruled that Utah's congressional district map must be redrawn ahead of the 2026 midterm election and given state lawmakers a Sept. 24 deadline to come up with a new map that complies with a citizen-initiated Proposition 4 ban on partisan gerrymandering
3. Last year ahead of the 2024 general election, this USPS official said: "We try to postmark every piece of mail. Sometimes it just doesn't happen."
2. In July, USPS said changes to how it processes mail, which are part of the controversial reorganization plan that began under former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, mean that some first-class mail and packages won't get postmarked the day USPS accepts them about.usps.com/what/strateg...
USPS PRO TIP: To make sure your first-class mail gets a postmark on the day you provide it to the Postal Service, ask for one at a USPS facility. USPS proposes to change its Domestic Mail Manual to say the postmark date "does not inherently or necessarily align" with when it first accepted your mail
This month, a Congressional Research Service report suggested lawmakers ask the Census Bureau for more information on its use of administrative records for the #2030Census, including the quality of the data they can produce & any potential cost savings from reducing the need for in-person interviews
3. Data scientists and advocates at @dataindex.us say: "When Reginfo.gov is disrupted or missing data, the public loses timely access to this process, reducing opportunities for engagement and oversight"
2. I've reached out to the press offices of the White House's Office and Management and Budget and the General Services Administration — the federal agencies that run Reginfo.gov — to ask when revisions are expected to be finished, what revisions are being made and what prompted them.
Today is the sixth day that the homepage of Reginfo.gov — the federal government website for informing the public about what survey data and other information agencies collect — has displayed a notice saying it's "currently undergoing revisions" with no further explanation
NEW: California Republicans try to block Democratic response to Texas' GOP-led congressional redistricting push by asking California Supreme Court to remove special election ballot measure that would allow the state to bypass its independent citizen redistricting commission & use lawmaker-drawn map
5. @lulacorg.bsky.social has also filed a legal complaint against the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map:
4. Legal complaints against the Texas congressional map have been filed by: -Black & Latino voters repped by @eliaslawgroup.bsky.social: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26... -Black & Latino voters led by Roy Charles Brooks, former Tarrant County commissioner: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
3. The judges have been asked to block the Texas map in preliminary injunction motions from: -Black & Latino voters repped by @eliaslawgroup.bsky.social: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26... -@lulacorg.bsky.social, Mexican American Legislative Caucus & another group of Black and Latino voters:
Thank you for reading/listening
2. CLARIFICATION: Wednesday's hearing is before *three* judges (not just one), who've been hearing the ongoing Texas redistricting case since 2021 -U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama, an Obama nominee -5th Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan nominee -District Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump nominee
NEW: Legal challenges are mounting against the Trump-backed Texas congressional district map. It now faces multiple lawsuits claiming it violates the Constitution by discriminating against Black and Latino voters. A check-in hearing before a federal judge is set for Wednesday at 9 a.m. MT in El Paso
NEW: Members of the Census Bureau's scientific advisory committee that the Trump administration ended plan to meet on their own on Sept. 18 to discuss #2030Census privacy protections at their first public meeting as the newly formed Independent Census Scientific Advisory Committee
3. THE BIG PICTURE: A growing number of Republicans, including President Trump, are calling to reset the congressional election map before the 2026 midterm election amid a GOP-initiated redistricting push that's trying to preserve Republican control of the U.S. House
2. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state..." - 14th Amendment on who should be counted in census apportionment counts used to redistribute U.S. House seats and Electoral College votes
NEW: Rep. Barry Moore, who's running for Senate in Alabama, is 4th Republican to support bill for new census & congressional redistricting before 2026 midterms & excluding non-US citizens living in the states from count that 14th Amendment says must include “whole number of persons in each state”
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” -Article I of the U.S. Constitution
NEW: The Census Bureau plans to use its Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey in September to try to understand people’s knowledge and trust in data from the country’s once-a-decade head count, plus barriers and motivators to participating in the #2030Census
2. It’s hard to say what public opinion on this will be during the #2030Census. But this year, the Trump administration's murky handling of data has become one of the reasons people cite when declining to share their information for federal surveys
NEW: A 2020 survey on census privacy and confidentiality concerns found that most participants wanted the Census Bureau to collect information directly from the public instead of relying on data from the records of other government agencies
Thanks for reading/listening
NEW: The Census Project urges the Trump administration to "remain focused on ensuring the success of the #2030Census," warning that "conducting a new or mid-decade census threatens ongoing research and testing needed to ensure the #2030Census is inclusive, cost-effective, and accurate"
You're right. And Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to carry out a national tally "in such Manner as they shall by Law direct"
12.
Got a news tip about the Census Bureau or the Postal Service? I'm a @npr.org correspondent who can be reached on Signal at hansi.01 (please use a nonwork device), and here’s my latest article:
11. And on Monday, another Republican official from Florida weighed in on the census with a letter to Lutnick referencing Trump's "recent census directive" by social media post
10. Last week, Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, introduced a similar proposal. Together, both Fine's and Greene's bills currently have less than a handful of sponsors and are stuck in committee.
9. Trump has publicly backed a proposal by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to change current federal law and allow for a new census, redistribution of House seats and a new round of congressional redistricting before the 2026 midterm election
8. Amid this rare mid-decade redistricting push, Trump, GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and some Republicans in Congress have floated doing a census before the #2030Census so that results can be used to redistribute House seats among the states and redraw congressional maps before the 2026 midterms.
7. Lutnick's remarks come amid a Republican-led campaign to use census data to redraw congressional voting maps in Texas and other states ahead of next year's midterm election in an attempt to maintain GOP control of the House of Representatives.
6. Asked by @npr.org whether Lutnick has communicated to the White House his position on Congress' authority over the census and whether he plans to propose adding a census question about a person's immigration status, the Commerce Department replied with the same statement it sent on Aug. 7:
5. Lutnick's remarks also appear to reference Trump's Aug. 7 call for the U.S. census to, for the first time in the country's history, exclude people without legal status. The 14th Amendment requires the "whole number of persons in each state" to be counted in the #2030Census apportionment numbers
4. Lutnick's comments on Tuesday mark the first known acknowledgement by a top Trump administration official of the potential legal hurdles facing any attempt to carry out the president's census call
3. Lutnick said if a person has "broken into the country," they need to be counted in the census, but they should be counted as someone who has "broken into the country," the three employees confirmed to NPR
2. Speaking at a town-hall event Tuesday, Lutnick also suggested the census should differentiate people living in the U.S. without legal status from other residents, according to three Census Bureau employees, who asked NPR not to name them because they fear retaliation
SCOOP: After President Trump’s call for a “new” census, his cabinet official overseeing the national head count — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — acknowledged to Census Bureau employees that Congress, not Trump, has final say over the tally, @npr.org has learned
2. THE BIG PICTURE: The Voting Rights Act’s remaining protections for minority voters may soon be furthered undermined by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority — which has weakened the landmark law in a series of decisions since 2013 — in this Louisiana redistricting case and other cases
NEW: Supreme Court sets a rare second round of oral arguments in the Louisiana congressional redistricting case for Oct. 15 after asking lawyers to address the constitutionality of a state intentionally drawing a second majority-minority district, which can be required under the Voting Rights Act
2. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state..." - 14th Amendment on who should be counted in census apportionment counts used to redistribute U.S. House seats and Electoral College votes
On Aug. 5, GOP Rep. Randy Fine of Florida introduced a bill calling for a new census “on the date” the bill becomes a law and for excluding people living in the states without U.S. citizenship from census counts that the 14th Amendment says must include the “whole number of persons in each state”
E.J. Antoni, an economist at the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, is President Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the firing of Erika McEntarfer hours following the release of a weaker-than-expected jobs report, my @npr.org colleague Scott Horsley reports
11. I've reached out to spokespeople for Florida state Attorney General James Uthmeier and for the Commerce Department for comment.
10. Uthmeier's letter comes more than a month after Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he "would love" House seats to be reapportioned using a new census and voting maps redrawn in time for the 2026 midterm election. (NOTE: The video below contains offensive language)
9. Uthmeier's letter also suggests the Supreme Court "has made clear" that a "correction of a certificate" showing a state's number of House seats can be issued at this point. But the court's 2002 ruling in Utah v. Evans lays out specific circumstances for when a certificate revision is allowed
8. Uthmeier's letter suggests the Commerce Department has "discretion" to issue to states revisions of certificates showing their number of House seats. But Title 2 of the U.S. Code says issuing certificates is "the duty of the Clerk of the House of Representatives"
7. Aside from missing key context about the Census Bureau's Post-Enumeration Survey, Uthmeier's letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the Census Bureau, appears to leave out key context about federal laws and a Supreme Court decision that it cites
6. Uthmeier also proposes that for "correcting the errant federal funding calculations" based on census results, the "2020 Decennial Census Report" be updated using "sampling data" from the Post-Enumeration Survey. But the bureau's researchers have already concluded this:
5. And the Commerce Department inspector general's office has reported this about the overcount and undercount estimates that Uthmeier suggests the Census Bureau use to guide a "recount":
4. The overcount and undercount estimates from the Census Bureau's Post-Enumeration Survey that Uthmeier suggests the bureau use to determine where to "recount" are not broken down below the state level because of the survey's small sample size:
3. Beyond the short timeline, there's another practical hurdle to Uthmeier's call for — before the 2026 midterm election — a "tailored and streamlined manual recount, utilizing technological tools and interagency resources as needed, within the relevant geographical portions of the affected States"
2. Uthmeier was a political appointee in the Commerce Department during the first Trump admin and helped come up with a failed plan to alter the 2020 census numbers by excluding people without legal status from what the 14th Amendment requires to be the "whole number of persons in each state"
NEW: Days after President Trump's call for a "new" census, Florida's GOP state Attorney General James Uthmeier proposes states get new shares of congressional seats before the 2026 midterm election based on a "recount" in states that the Census Bureau estimates it overcounted or undercounted in 2020
