The 2020 census count comes to an end Thursday. Here’s how that will affect Kansas and its cities.

After many challenges imposed this year by the coronavirus pandemic and innumerable twists from the White House, the 2020 census will come to an end Thursday night following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Tuesday.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could halt the 2020 census count ahead of schedule.

People can fill out the census until 11:59 p.m. Oct. 15 by visiting 2020census.gov or responding via mail. Those sending their census response by mail must have the envelope postmarked Oct. 15.

Topeka Councilman Mike Padilla said the Supreme Court’s ruling is unfortunate.

“I don’t know why any country would not want to have an accurate count of the population,“ Padilla said. ”I think it’s a big responsibility to the citizens of the United States to know what their population is so they can supply resources in a fair and impartial way. Not having complete information leaves a lot of people out of consideration, especially for those who are being under served already.“

While the U.S. Census Bureau has reported that all states have been 99% enumerated, that number in several states falls well below the line.

In Kansas, 69.6% have self-responded while 30.3% have been enumerated in non-response follow-up.

According to Wendi Stark, census outreach manager for the League of Kansas Municipalities, the most accurate number is the self-response percentage.

As a whole, and considering the many roadblocks this year, Kansas is doing well in its count, Stark said.

“One hundred percent of self-response is always that goal, and we nearly met the 2010 self-response rate, which was 70.0%,” Stark said.

While the state appears to be doing well, the impending deadline still means that several groups are at risk of being undercounted.

“One of the highest undercounted groups are children between the ages of zero and five,“ Stark said. ”So that is a group that is frequently undercounted. Any minority groups, any African American, Hispanic, any immigrants, those are groups that are harder to count.“

Groups at risk of being undercounted in Topeka include Black and Hispanic people, according to Padilla.

Topeka currently sits at a 68.7% self-response rate. Padilla said Topeka ranked third in its response rates among the cities in its population range.

According to previous Topeka Capital-Journal reporting, for every 100 people not counted in 2020, Topeka will miss out on $2,000 a year in federal funding. The census helps determine federal funding for schools, hospitals, public works projects and roads based on the number of people living in a community.

In Pittsburg, the group that is at risk of being undercounted is college students.

According to Brittan Brenner, community development specialist for the city of Pittsburg, census mailers were sent out in March when Pittsburg State University’s students had to return home because of the shutdown imposed by COVID-19.

Despite the many deadline changes, Brenner said the city of Pittsburg has been trying to wrap up loose ends and double-check its numbers.

According to the U.S. Census website, Pittsburg’s self-response rate is 60.1%.

“We had all really planned on having to end Sept. 30,” Brenner said. “They made the decision within the last week of September. When it got extended again for the extra month, at that point our response rates were pretty high. We just continued to push out as much information as we could working with particularly hard to reach populations, double-checking with all of our assisted living facilities, organizations who partner with them or work with clients of those facilities (and) also working with our college.”