DARLINGTON - Organizers hope a rally planned for 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Darlington County Courthouse helps promote participation by county residents in the 2010 census.
“It’s In Our Hands – We Will Be Counted” is the theme for the event, which will take place on the courthouse grounds. The rally is free and open to the public, and organizers are hoping for a large turnout.
The event is one of several projects put together by Darlington County’s Complete Count Committee, a group of people from local government and the private sector working to ensure greater public participation in the census throughout Darlington County and its municipalities.
Census forms were scheduled to be mailed to households this week. The 10-question forms can be completed in a short amount of time and returned by mail. Census officials stress that information from the forms is kept confidential by federal law.
Officials say Darlington County, its cities and South Carolina were all under counted in the 2000 U.S. Census.
Milton Smalls of the U.S. Census Bureau said South Carolina had the second worst response rate among the 50 states in the 2000 census.
Organizers are stressing the importance of an accurate count for several reasons. Billions of federal dollars to states and local communities are distributed each year based on census data.
Smalls said if the state and county are under counted, they will miss out on their fair share of that funding.
In addition, seats in the U.S. House of Representatives districts are allocated every 10 years and congressional districts reapportioned based on population.
Smalls said South Carolina may stand to pick up a seventh House seat in the next reapportionment as some larger states are expected to lose some seats.
State legislative districts, county council and city and town council districts are also drawn based on population.
Saturday’s rally will include remarks from state and local officials about the importance of the 2010 census. It will also include performances by the Hartsville High School Band.
In addition, contestants in the Complete Count Committee’s census art contest will be recognized.
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