Exactly one year from now — April 1, 2010 — the 2010 Census will attempt to count everyone living in America. The Census Bureau says it is working hard to prepare in Utah, and to convince everyone from polygamists to undocumented immigrants that it is in their best interest to participate.

"We have special arrangements with polygamists (in Hildale). We just met with them last week," for example, said Daniel L. Pacheco, a Census official working with hard-to-count groups.

"There were some concerns, but they know things that happened in Texas (in the FLDS raid there) did not come from release of Census data," Pacheco said. "They stand to benefit just like any other group, because the count determines the flow of $300 billion of federal money a year" to state and local governments based on population.

He added "The town of Hildale draws services. If they are not counted, they cannot draw the federal dollars necessary (for) community needs."

To help all groups feel more at ease with being counted, W. Todd Hansen, the Utah Census office manager, stresses that Census workers must take an oath of confidentiality not to reveal — for the rest of their lives — anything they find in their work, or they face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

"So if we see people growing pot in their house, or cooking drugs, or if there's a lot of illegal immigrants there, or they just robbed a bank or whatever, we can't reveal any of that information," Hansen said.

"We not only don't ask if you are here legally," he said, "We don't have any authorization to ask, we don't have any place to record that information, (and) we couldn't do anything with the information if we did have it."

Hansen said Federal Drug Enforcement Agency once staked out a house where they believed a drug operation was ongoing, and attempted to get Census counters who visited it to tell them who was inside. They refused, "and it went all the way to the Supreme Court," which upheld laws banning Census officials from disclosing such data, he said.

"A big part of our mission is to convince people that this is absolutely confidential," Hansen said.

Sergio A. Martinez, another Census official who works with hard-to-count groups in Utah and is himself an immigrant from Mexico, said the Census has been working with immigrant groups, churches, civic organizations and others who are trusted by immigrants.

"One of the key strategies for us in gaining support and confidence from these people who are afraid of anybody wearing a badge from the government is to make sure that the message comes from a trusted voice in the community," he said.