Erie will challenge 2020 U.S. Census count that showed shrinking city population

Erie recently lost its status as Pennsylvania’s fourth-largest city, courtesy of decennial census data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Mayor Joe Schember’s administration plans to formally challenge those results.

Renee Lamis, Schember’s chief of staff, confirmed that city officials plan to request a review of the city’s census data via the Census Bureau’s 2020 Census Count Question Resolution Operation, a process known as CQR.

The formal review mechanism gives municipalities and counties the opportunity to request a Census Bureau review of their 2020 counts for potential processing errors or other factors that could lead to inaccurate counts.

According to decennial census data, the city of Erie’s population is now 94,831, compared to 101,786 a decade ago and 138,440 at its peak in 1960.

The city lost 6,955 people since 2010, a decline of more than 7%, according to census data.

Reading, located in Berks County in the southeastern portion of the state, is now Pennsylvania's fourth-largest city. That city saw its population increase nearly 8%, from 88,082 in 2010 to 95,112 in 2020.

Erie ranks as the state's fifth-largest city, behind Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Reading.

2020 Census: Erie County, city populations drop again, extending trend

“We will be challenging our 2020 Census numbers for several reasons,” Lamis said. “Based on our experience and anecdotal information, we see several areas of concern that could have helped to produce an undercount and/or that could provide evidence that an undercount occurred.”

Schember said he believes the city's challenge will be filed sometime in March.

"I really believe we are well over 100,000 residents based on what we heard from the census-takers who were out in the field," Schember said. "They knew there were people at many of the homes that just didn't want to open the door."

The Census Bureau is accepting challenges from municipalities and counties through June 30, 2023, but the bureau hopes to respond to challenges within 90 days of receiving them, according to information on its website.

Lamis said that, in Erie and nationwide, the COVID-19 pandemic and politics posed multiple challenges to the census count, and door-to-door canvassing was delayed.

Erie County's population declined 3.5% over the past decade, dropping by 9,690 people to 270,876, according to the decennial census data.

Erie County Solicitor Bill Speros said that County Executive Brenton Davis’ administration "has not taken a position yet" on challenging the Census results or whether the county will support the city's challenge.

The official census count is important because it helps to determine congressional district boundaries and the level of funding counties and municipalities receive from state and federal governments for a range of programs and projects over the next 10 years.

Local officials have estimated that Erie County could lose $2,100 annually in funding for every person who went uncounted, or roughly $20.3 million over the next decade.

Lamis said that during the citywide census count in 2020, city officials experienced repeated calls from census-takers and managers seeking the city’s help in getting accurate counts because residents would not answer their doors. Many of those residents feared COVID-19 or did not trust the census-taking process.

Further, Lamis said, the city saw deadline changes from federal officials regarding the census and difficulty in accurately accounting for college students, who were supposed to be counted at their campus residences even though many on-campus housing facilities were closed during the pandemic.

City officials also believe that outdated information from 2010 led to “entire apartment complexes” within city limits being skipped in the census process, because the apartment numbers had changed.

Additionally, Lamis said, city officials suspect many immigrants and new Americans living in Erie did not participate in the census because of confusion over whether information about their incomes, immigration status or size of household would be part of the process.

Inside the data: Refugees, immigrants offset population slide, increase Erie County's diversity

Data gathered by city officials, for example, shows that nearly 3,000 refugees from 75 countries have resettled in Erie within the past five years.

“We will be looking to see if it makes sense that such drastic population losses could occur in the face of an influx of refugees and immigrants,” Lamis said.

Mayor Joe Schember said in August, after the decennial data was released, that he was disappointed in the census numbers, and that his administration would “absolutely” consider challenging the city’s population data.

For more than a year, Schember’s administration repeatedly told city residents they should not fear the 2020 census.

To prevent an undercount, city officials distributed a flyer that included nine questions asked as part of the nationwide count to alleviate some residents’ concerns about the questions included in the census and what might be done with the information they provide.

City of Erie: Flyer takes on census fears

That flyer was distributed at the city’s neighborhood centers, the International Institute of Erie, local nonprofits and other locations that traditionally work with communities that might be underreported or hard to count.

City officials also launched public contests with various prizes to encourage people to take part in the census, and the city tracked census participation by various city neighborhoods.

Erie City Council President Liz Allen said she agrees with the Schember administration’s decision to challenge the city’s census count.

“I’m a big believer in data, and a challenge could prove what we know anecdotally — that newcomers to Erie were undercounted in the Census,” Allen said.

Some 73.1% of Erie County residents self-responded to the census, which is nearly identical to the 73.4% who responded in 2010. That left more than a quarter of the county's estimated population for census-takers to reach.

In July 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population count sent to Congress for reapportioning seats in the House of Representatives, which sparked a legal battle.

Further, then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees the Census Bureau, ordered the count to end prematurely on Sept. 30, 2020, so that the preliminary data could be delivered to Trump to meet a statutory deadline of Dec. 31. An Oct. 31 deadline would have allowed the winner of the presidential election to send those totals to Congress in the spring.

Staff writer A.J. Rao contributed to this report.

Contact Kevin Flowers at kflowers@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNflowers.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Count it again: City of Erie to challenge 2020 U.S. Census