President Trump has ordered the Commerce Department to begin working on a new mid-decade census, emphasizing that those who are in the country illegally should not be counted in the total.

We favor a recount – but maybe not for the exact reasons Trump does. The main reason for a mid-decade recount is that 2020 was bungled – badly.

There were two problems. In 2022, the Census Bureau admitted that egregious statistical errors likely shortchanged some states in their federal funding and congressional representation, while other states got more funding and representation than they are entitled to. It appears that at least three extra House seats went to Democrats due to overcounts in states like New York. The census failed to accurately account for people who had fled locked-down blue states during Covid. See map. The orange states had overcounts.

Florida and Texas had big undercounts. Blue states like Rhode Island and New York kept Congressional seats they should have lost. Remember, there was a lot of chatter about the possibility that the 2024 presidential election could have been decided by one or two electoral votes.

The miscount was even bigger when you consider that the last Census counted between 10 and 20 million illegal non-citizens in many states.

Trump sought to reform the 2020 Census count by attempting to include a citizenship question, but he lost on procedural grounds.

Our guess is that Trump probably can exclude illegals from any mid-decade census because federal law says the Commerce Secretary can determine the form and content of a mid-decade. A mid-decade Census can’t be used to re-apportion House seats but can be used for allocating federal funds among states.

So let’s get an accurate count.