With the results of the 2010 United States Census approaching, a federal agency has singled out Madison as one of the most active cities in this year’s census.
According to the census, Madison had a total mail participation rate of 82 percent, compared to 74 percent of households nationwide.
Rachel Strauch-Nelson, spokesperson for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, said that these high response rates are nothing out of the ordinary. Historically, Madison has done very well with participation rates in the low to mid 80s, she said.
The main reason for these high response rates relies on reaching out to a broad range of constituencies within Madison.
“We pulled together a group of folks that were a cross-representation of every community; communities of color, the university community, homeless service providers,” Strauch-Nelson said. “We tried to reach out to those folks so they could reach out to their constituencies.”
The 82 percent participation rate puts Madison in the tenth highest mail participation rate in cities with populations of 100,000 people or more, Strauch-Nelson said.
Despite the success of the participation of Madison in the 2010 Census, University of Wisconsin spokesperson John Lucas said it has been difficult in the past to involve UW students.
“One of the things that has always been troublesome is getting people in campus housing to pay attention to their mail and people don’t always go out and respond to it,” Lucas said.
For the 2010 Census, Lucas headed the Complete Count Committee, which utilized mass e-mails, a webpage, and social media such as Twitter posts and Facebook to reach out to the students.
According to the United States Census 2010, the mail participation rate is the percent of forms mailed back by households that received them. 85 percent of residents in housing responded to the forms, Lucas said.
“I think it’s great that students are paying attention and understand the importance of it and respond,” Lucas said. “This is a credit to UW-Madison students: that they care enough to participate like this.”
Lucas said his next hope is the same kind of involvement will be reflected in the Nov. 2 election.
