The event was part of the important groundwork the Census Bureau is orchestrating in order to collect the most accurate numbers possible. The actual Census work will begin in four short months. The Census is essentially a flier, a single sheet of paper with eight questions, said event speaker Deidra Garcia, President of DRG Construction Group. On the day it comes, fill it out and be done with it. Do it for your community!

Denver Councilman Paul Lopez, who is also one of the co-chairs of Denver’s Complete Count Committee, told the audience that it’s important that all residents are counted. He said it’s particularly important for members of the country’s “hard to reach” communities. The census, he said, provides the information on which all kinds of funds are allotted– federal funding for services to Denver Metro-area schools, hospitals, child care facilities and so on. The Census is not only important but also confidential.

“Not even the president of the United States can look at Census information,” Lopez said.

Garcia said the Census was designed to be easy to complete. Garcia explained that her own father had never filled out a census because he was under the impression that “the census was just to count those who were here illegally.” He didn’t think he needed to be counted because he was an American citizen whose family had been citizens for generations.

Misunderstandings about the Census come in all varieties, said Garcia. It’s just not that complicated.

Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally said she spoke about the Census at a Laos/Mong conference last week. This message needs to reach everyone, she said. At the conference, she said, she heard translators putting her words out to a broad community that needed to be more widely recognized as part of U.S. national culture.

As she watched signs about the census go up in the ten different languages at the conference, she said she “felt a finger poking my shoulder and a woman said thank you.”

Representatives attended from the offices of U.S. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter.

“We’re here to make certain we have the correct information to help our constituents,” Perlmutter staffer Jeffery O’Neil told The Colorado Independent.

Tony Hernandez, director of the Division of Local Government and chair of the State of Colorado Complete Count Committee noted that while it is important for those involved to press the message with local communities, it was up to the public on an individual level to tell neighbors they needed to participate. It will affect all of our lives, he said. More than $2 billions at stake for Colorado alone.

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The Celebration, held at the Denver Inner City Parishbeginning at 11 a.m., will include presentations by Councilman Lopez, who is also Chair of the Denver Complete Count Committee, Garcia of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as well as Tony Hernandez, Director of the State Division on Local Government and Chair of the State Complete Count Committee, and Assistant Regional Census Manager Russ Frumm.

“Our operations will play a very active role in reaching out to people where they live and encouraging them to complete their Census forms, Said Regional Census Director Cathy L. Lacy. “We want residents to understand what activity to expect in the coming months. We also want to make sure they know that filling out their forms is safe, easy and important and that funding for roads, schools, and social programs is at stake.”

The Census Bureau has reported it will recruit and train workers to conduct outreach operations across the country. The enormous operation will impact federal, state and local funding. Estimates suggest funding tied to the census amounts to close to $875 per person per year in Federal aid alone. That money is provided to communities directly as a result of their participation in the census, a fact the Bureau is determined to braodcast as wide as possible.

The census, of course, is also used to determine the apportionment of Congressional seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Colorado, however, will likely neither lose nor gain seats.

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A pro-Latino voter plackard reads 'Our voice is our vote, we are the political force.' (Photo/Erin Rosa)

To help with the momentous task — which goes above and beyond current federal voting regulations pertaining to bilingual speakers — is the city’s Spanish Language Voting Advisory Committee, also called ACCESO, the Spanish word for “access.”

Federal regulations require Denver, with an estimated Latino population of 35 percent, to provide bilingual poll workers to at least 133 out of the 185 of voting precincts that will be used during the election, according to Alton Dillard, spokesman for the Denver Elections Division.

“There are precincts that we are actually required to cover, but we always try to go over and above,” said Dillard. This year especially — with record turnout already being reported in early voting and mail-in ballot tallies, and Latino populations surging in the state — it’s going to be important to have an adequate number of Spanish and bilingual speakers.

“It’s created a different dynamic,” Dillard said, noting that the city is only 40 individuals short of reaching its recruiting goal of one bilingual poll worker for all 185 precincts. The shortfall is expected to be resolved by Election Day because of daily recruiting efforts by city officials and ACCESO.

Paul Lopez, a Denver city councilman who sits on the ACCESO committee, says that providing Spanish-speaking poll workers could affect election results in Denver, with a high Latino population.

“We are having more people registered all across the board and that includes folks that are Spanish speaking,” Lopez says. “Anyone that can speak a second language is going to be very helpful and very critical to voter turnout.”

Ballots in the Mile High City are also required to be printed in English and Spanish. Federal regulations require this of cities whose population of Spanish speakers is more than 5 percent.

ACCESO was formed in 2002, shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice notified Denver that it would need to print bilingual ballots under federal law.

Dillard described the advisory committee as a resource to help recruit of poll workers from the Spanish-speaking community, with outreach focused on “a particular concentration of areas of town where there is a high Latino population.

Ads soliciting bilingual poll workers were placed in a number of Spanish-language newspapers and the board also set up a Web site in Spanish as a resource on election issues.

“It may or may not come up, but having someone there to connect with the bilingual voters is important,” said Isaac Medrano of Democracia U.S.A., a non-partisan Latino civic engagement organization that operates in a number of battleground states, including Colorado.

“Both sides of the aisle are working to get Latinos on to their side and make sure they come out and vote,” said Medrano. “To ask the questions that people get asked during an election, individuals, regardless of their race, may have a problem with the language.”

The poll worker spots in Denver are paid positions, and more information can be found at Denver Votes.