Alabama drops lawsuit challenging Census privacy method
The state of Alabama has asked to dismiss its lawsuit challenging a controversial statistical method used by the U.S. Census Bureau
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The state of Alabama on Thursday asked to dismiss its lawsuit challenging the U.S. Census Bureau's use of a controversial statistical method aimed at keeping people’s data private in the numbers used for redrawing congressional and legislative districts.
Alabama and three Alabama politicians had sued the Commerce Department which oversees the Census Bureau, in an effort to stop the statistical agency from using the method known as “differential privacy." They also wanted to force the bureau to release the redistricting numbers earlier than planned. Normally, the data are released at the end of March, but the Census Bureau pushed the deadline to August because of delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Alabama originally claimed the delay was caused by the bureau’s attempt to implement differential privacy, which the state’s attorneys said would result in inaccurate redistricting numbers. A three-judge panel in June refused to stop the Census Bureau from using the statistical method. In July, Alabama and the Commerce Department asked that the lawsuit be put on hold so that the state could decide how to proceed after the redistricting data were released in mid-August.
The dismissal request filed Thursday didn't provide a reason, and Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office in Montgomery didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
Differential privacy adds intentional errors to the data to obscure the identity of any given participant in the 2020 census while still providing statistically valid information. The Census Bureau says more privacy protections are needed than in past decades as technological innovations magnify the threat of people being identified through their census answers, which are confidential by law.
___
Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP