Friday, November 28, 2003

Rejecting 2000 Census Counts, Tribes Are Tabulating Their Own

Warm Springs, Ore., Nov. 27 (AP) - Indian reservations posed a multitude of problems to census takers, not the least of which were big, ever-changing households, frequent moves, mistrust of government officials and differing definitions of who is an Indian. Thus, the tabulations of Indians had some of the highest error rates for any minority.

For the first time, however, tribes will not have to accept the official census numbers, which the federal government uses to distribute aid.