All of those factors were present before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted basic civic and government services nationwide. The hurdles include many of the state’s quintessential characteristics: a substantial rural population spread out over a vast geographic area, a widespread lack of city-style mailing addresses, and the frustration of unreliable internet access. “And so we don’t have the option to just give up and say it’s too hard, there’s too many barriers.”įor Newcomb and other nonprofit and state employees, preparing for an accurate federal census count in Montana has been equivalent to training for a grueling race. “I mean, it’s vital work,” said Newcomb, one of the lead staffers focused on census outreach and grant funding for the Montana Nonprofit Association.
Since February, Tylyn Newcomb has been losing sleep over a seemingly herculean task: how to ensure the government counts as many Montana residents as possible for the 2020 census, and, in doing so, generate fair federal funding and electoral representation for the next decade. Read more How Montana’s 2020 census became “an uphill climb while it’s hailing basketballs.”
