Leaked Doc: Soros Open Society Seeks to Reshape Census, Electoral Districts

According to a hacked document, George Soros’s Open Society Foundation is funding key progressive groups with the stated goal of attempting to “influence appropriations for the (U.S.) Census Bureau” while pushing to change the methods in which racial categories are counted for the coming 2020 Census.

The 2020 Census is critical in determining the gain or loss of districts and the reapportionment of the numbers of House seats allotted to each state, otherwise known as redistricting. The Census could determine whether Democrats have a better chance at gaining control of the House next decade.

Soros’s group clearly understands the centrality of the 2020 Census and is apparently seeking to influence the outcome.

The information is revealed in a hacked December 2015 document titled, “Voting Rights Portfolio Review: Outcomes Summary” from the Open Society’s U.S. Programs branch.

The memo relates the review was initiated at the request of Open Society Foundations President Chris Stone to “examine the voting rights field and our related grantmaking.”

A section titled, “First grants to be made” identified four progressive groups to be funded to help influence the methodology of the 2020 Census: The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), the Leadership Conference, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and Demos.

The memo was direct when it came to the purpose of the funding, specifically to influence 2020 Census counting procedures:

“Advocates have about a year and a half to influence appropriations for the Census Bureau, the redesign of racial categories on the 2020 Census instrument and policy regarding how to count persons who are incarcerated. Census topics must be presented to Congress in April 2017 with final questions by April 2018.”

NALEO’s Education Fund runs a program to “educate” policymakers about issues related to the 2020 Census and what the group calls the “persistent problem of the under-representation of Latinos.”

The group’s website states:

NALEO Educational Fund also educates policymakers about the need for sound and cost-effective planning for Census 2020. In addition, we work to strengthen the American Community Survey, which is the source of updated information on a wide range of population and housing characteristics. NALEO Educational Fund also advocates for policies to address the persistent problem of the under-representation of Latinos at all of the levels of the Census Bureau’s workforce, particularly in its senior and management leadership positions.

The Soros-funded Demos has long pushed for what it calls “fair redistricting” and an end to “prison gerrymandering” in the 2020 Census; in other words, counting incarcerated people in the census. At issue is whether to count incarcerated people as “residents” of prison locations.

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