The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a motion to intervene in Louisiana v. U.S. Department of Commerce on behalf of the League of Women Voters of the United States (LWV), the League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVFL), and the League of Women Voters of New York State (LWVNYS).
The lawsuit, filed by the plaintiff states of Louisiana, Kansas, Ohio, and West Virginia, aims to exclude people based on their citizenship status from the census count, which is used to assign congressional seats and Electoral College votes.
The purpose of the U.S. Census is to provide accurate data about the country’s economy and residents. Although the suit seeks to exclude undocumented persons and holders of temporary visas from the count, the Constitution and federal law require that all residents — irrespective of their citizenship status — are counted to ensure fair representation and equitable distribution of federal resources to states.
If the plaintiff states succeed, the government will have to penalize states with large immigrant populations, shrinking their congressional representation and electoral votes along with the federal funding tied to their population. Excluding millions of people from the census count would distort democracy and unfairly weaken the voting power of states with large immigrant populations.
