WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court is due to issue eagerly awaited decisions on Thursday in cases on the Trump administration's attempt to add a contentious citizenship question to the 2020 census and bids by voters to stem the partisan manipulation of electoral district boundaries, a practice called gerrymandering.
Opponents have called the move by President Donald Trump's Commerce Department to add a citizenship question to the census a Republican manoeuvre to deter immigrants from taking part in the decennial population count out of fear of deportation. The intent, these critics have said, is to manufacture a deliberate undercount of areas with high immigrant and Latino populations, costing Democratic-leaning regions seats in the House, benefiting Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
Hofeller concluded in a 2015 study that asking census respondents whether they are American citizens"would clearly be a disadvantage to the Democrats" and"advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites" in redrawing electoral districts based on census data.