In your opinion, which group of people should the US census count?

All US residents (61%) – "Once every 10 years our nation gets a snapshot of its populace, a populace that pays taxes, consumes goods and services, as citizen or not. To plan, protect, conserve, and provide our nation needs to know how many residents it has and what their makeup is. Excluding certain residents, ie legal residents, green card holders, foreign nationals, students, teachers, and researchers, leaves gaps that could overwhelm local resources."

• "An accurate census of everyone LIVING in America will help align data on road usage, employment statistics, how much we actually produce and consume, plans we need to make. Without accurate information about who lives in each area, how can that area determine whether or not to build schools or widen roads, for example."

"Funding and Resources Federal Fund Allocation: Census numbers guide the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds each year. Public Services: Money is allocated based on population data for essential public programs, including Medicaid, public schools, highway construction, and community health centers. Planning Local Infrastructure: Local governments use the data to plan where to build new roads, schools, hospitals, and emergency response facilities. Business Decisions: Private companies use demographic data from the census to decide where to open new stores, offices, and factories."

• "Large data sets like census data provide value in longitudinal data comparisons to follow trends over time. You can’t do that when you keep changing the data sets. It seems like a big fiasco to create for his anti-immigrantion agenda."

"House reps aside, how do you expect to get an inkling of the true population in this country if you don't count everyone? It would have a domino effect for states, cities and towns that would lead to improper infrastructure for the true population."

• "A census should be used to tally the actual makeup of a population and allow it to be tracked over time, including ethnicity and race. Removing counts of people who live in a region falsifies the data, rendering the census utterly meaningless.

Only US citizens and green card holders (32%) – "If you are visiting another country and not a citizen why would they count you in a census. In our Constitution we base our congressional representation on the census. Our voting system is based on it for the electoral college. You throw off the count and it changes the representation of different states. Citizen rights are not protected."

• "Obedience to the law is extremely important. The census is used, among other things, to allocate important and scarce government resources. Only those in obedience to the law should be eligible. Interracial marriage, and ethnic mixing are such in America today that the race questions are superfluous and often misleading. I write all this as a retired law professor."

"I can't imagine why someone who is not legally a citizen could be used to influence elections. Why should NJ and California get additional seats for residents who are not citizens? That's unfairly swaying the House of Representatives."

Unsure/other (7%) – "A Standard Census focuses on people physically present in the country. So this should include everyone, documented or not. But what about counting citizens Abroad? It seems they're usually excluded unless the country conducts a separate survey or has a specific program to track populations, which could lead to some double counting. But as the primary goal is to count **residents** for representation, resource allocation, and policy planning within the country itself, count who is here."