The mailers are labeled “2019 Congressional District Census” and inform recipients that they’ve been “selected to represent Voters” in Bozeman, Mont. The accompanying literature makes repeated requests for donations, urging recipients to send at least $15 to “help pay for the costs of processing [the] Census Document” if they are unable to afford an amount in the requested range of $25 to $1,000.
The potentially misleading mailings come as the U.S. Census Bureau is preparing for what’s expected to be one of the most challenging federal counts in decades. The bureau is grappling with factors like a switch to digital and the fallout from the Trump administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the survey.