For the latest State of the Data Infrastructure feature, Count on Stats spoke with three experts about the US Census Bureau: Margo Anderson of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, an expert on the history of the bureau and federal statistical system; Allison Plyer, chief demographer of The Data Center and recent chair of the bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee; and Nancy Potok, most recently chief statistician of the US who, most notably, has also been deputy director and chief operating officer of the bureau and deputy undersecretary for economic affairs at the US Department of Commerce.

ASA Member Michael Fay responds to Tommy Wright’s July 2021 Amstat News article on apportionment computations for the US House of Representatives with an alternative perspective.

Basic arithmetic skill (multiplication, division, and taking square roots) is all one needs to remove any mystery concerning the details of the computations about how to determine the number of seats each state gets based on its population.