BISMARCK - The next nationwide census is more than four years away, but planning is already going on in North Dakota and elsewhere.
Census Bureau officials met with county auditors, planners, legislators and other officials.
The Census Bureau is required to meet and work with state and local officials who use census data to redraw legislative district boundaries to reflect population shifts.
The Census Bureau improves each successive census by working with state and local officials on what worked and what didn't, said Deidre D. Bishop, assistant chief of the Census Redistricting Data Office, Washington, D.C.
Bishop said a long-form questionnaire that one of every six American households received in 2000 has been scrapped. The 53-question mailing came under widespread criticism as overly intrusive.
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Instead, the bureau is using only a short form in 2010, supplemented with an ongoing separate "American Community Survey" sent to 1,040 households each month.
No household will get the 12-page survey more than once every five years.
