The county's overall undercount was estimated to be 2.4 percent to 2.8 percent. A. Cities especially. Many funding programs are tied to population counts, so an accurate count is crucial. Nonprofit groups that solicit grants care as well. These organizations have to write proposals that include population figures that figure into funding.
Politicians care as well.
In Congress, lawmakers from both parties have said an adjustment could add more Democratic-leaning minorities to redrawn districts and threaten the GOP's narrow House majority. A letter signed by 48 Democratic senators and circulated by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., urged Evans to delay his ruling until he can appear before the Senate Commerce Committee. At first, Republicans supported an adjustment. But after a Republican redistricting expert wrote a memorandum in 1997 predicting that an adjustment could cost the party 24 House seats, party leaders switched their stance and sought to discredit adjusting the head count. The battle over the redrawing of the county's five supervisorial-district lines is expected to be fierce.