WASHINGTON, D.C. – A three-judge federal court today dismissed a lawsuit brought by Florida College Republican organizations and U.S. Representative Byron Donalds, challenging the statistical methods the Census Bureau used in the 2020 Census.
The court’s unanimous ruling comes in response to a motion to dismiss filed by Elias Law Group attorneys on behalf of the Alliance for Retired Americans and two students at the University of Central Florida, who intervened in defense of the Census.
“This lawsuit was a dangerous attempt to justify an unprecedented, partisan revision to the 2020 census and to lay the groundwork for attacks on the 2030 count,” said Elias Law Group partner David Fox. “These meritless claims were filed years too late, and the court made the right decision by dismissing the Republicans’ lawsuit. We are proud to represent Florida retirees and college students whose accurate representation in the Census was at stake in this case.”
The Republican lawsuit challenged two Census Bureau practices used during the 2020 Census: “group quarters imputation,” a method for estimating populations in places like nursing homes and college dormitories which were difficult to count during COVID, and “differential privacy,” a technique that protects individual respondents’ confidentiality as federal law requires.
In a 27-page opinion, the court found that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was filed too late.
“Plaintiffs challenge conduct that concluded, at the latest, in August 2021,” the court wrote. “But they waited more than four years after that to sue, in September 2025. So their claims are time-barred.”
Click HERE to read the full opinion.
Elias Law Group was proud to partner with the National Redistricting Foundation for this important case.
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