Political Scene

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is taking no position on the bill.

CENSUS

Initial checks show accuracy

The U.S. Census Bureau is confident that official 2010 census results reflect high levels of accuracy, improving from a decade ago.

Director Robert M. Groves said Wednesday that a preliminary comparison of 2010 results with independent measures showed good accuracy.

He acknowledged that census workers in some dense urban and low-income areas had trouble getting responses. In those cases, the government queried building managers for information.

Last month, the Census Bureau reported a 2010 tally of 308.7 million people, with most growth in the South and West.

In 2000, the census count was 1.3 million people too many, largely because some affluent whites were counted twice. About 4.5 million people were missed, mostly blacks and Hispanics.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports