Census Bureau Downgrades Back to Paper

The 2010 US census was meant to be a high-tech affair, NextGov.com reports, but the Census Bureau today ditched plans to use hand-held computers. The agency will return to plain old paper after "a lack of effective communication" derailed efforts by Harris Corp. to come up with devices to record data from the estimated 1 million who don't mail back their forms.

The devices will still be used to update household addresses, but officials will gather data door-to-door on the old forms, AP reports. The extra 600,000 workers necessary to do the paperwork may bump the total cost of the constitutionally mandated census to $14.5 billion, the most expensive in history. (More US Census stories.)