Census question on citizenship began as GOP plan to hurt Democrats, documents show

WASHINGTON - Newly revealed documents appeared to confirm Thursday what many critics had long suspected - that the Trump administration's drive to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census began as a plan to bolster Republicans and to undercut Democrats in state legislatures and Congress.

Thomas Hofeller, a Republican expert on redistricting and gerrymandering, died last year in North Carolina. His daughter found documents on his computer hard drive urging the Commerce Department to change the census to ask all residents about whether they are citizens.

With this data, states could draw new election maps based on the number of eligible voters, not the total population.