CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The self-response deadline for the 2020 US Census in West Virginia has been moved to September 30.
The West Virginia Complete Count Commission set up by Gov. Jim Justice met once again on Tuesday and Census officials stated that the field operations and self-response deadline was moved from its October 31 date.
Census officials continue to go door-to-door in all 55 counties in West Virginia as the state’s response rate sits at 54.6 percent, the 48th overall response rate among states.
Complete Count Commission member Andy Malinoski of the state Department of Commerce said West Virginia is making progress.
“June 15 there were six counties that had exceeded their 2010 number. Today (Tuesday) there are nine. June 15, 15 counties were within five percent of their total overall response rate from 2010 and today (Tuesday) there are 18,” he said during the teleconference meeting.
Jefferson County is the top county in Census response at 70.4 percent while Wood is at 68.8 and Berkeley is 67.5.
25 of the 55 counties sit below 50 percent response rate with McDowell County in last at 23.5 percent. Pocahontas County has a 24.6 percent response rate and Mingo has a 27.7 percent rate as of Tuesday afternoon.
VIEW: Census response dashboard
Malinoski said there had been a successful text campaign over the weekend in low response areas that resulted in the state’s response rate rising 0.3 percent in just a couple of days. 414,000 texts were sent to those areas.
Census response rates per congressional districts were revealed on Tuesday and included 59 percent for District 1, 58.6 for District 2 and 46.3 percent for District 3.
“West Virginia is making progress. We still have a lot of work to do especially in those low response counties. Please share with your friends, neighbors, your constituents the idea of responding,” Malinoski said.