[Psudo]

Some are saying Obama is trying to fiddle with the electoral vote system via partisanship in taking the census in order to give blue states more voting power in the legislature and US Presidential elections.

OSC's WorldWatch wrote:

[Obama] has just moved the constitutionally-required Census from the Commerce Department to the White House -- specifically putting it under the thumb of his political strategist, Rahm Emanuel.
[...]
If Bush had put Karl Rove in charge of the Census without so much as asking Congress for permission, the howls and screams would have been deafening. Obama does the identical thing ... and the freedom-loving Left is fine with it.

Obviously it's the viewpoint of a ideologue, but is it a valid criticism of Obama's treatment of the census?

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Edited to add more links:
* Dems Downplay Obama's Plan to Oversee 2010 Census - Fox News
Notable quote: "Seven former Census directors, serving every president from Nixon to George W. Bush, signed a letter last year supporting a bill to turn the Census Bureau into an independent agency after the 2010 Census."

* New York and the Fight Over the 2010 Census - Andrew Beveridge, Gotham Gazette (NY)
Notable quote: "The release of the 2000 census made it plain that the 1990 Reagan-Bush census was seriously flawed. especially with respect to populous states with big cities and large minority and immigrant populations."

* The Coming Battle of Reapportionment and Redistricting - Bruce Walker, The American Thinker
Notable quote: "If President Obama tries to politically manage the census process, he will violate federal law and the Constitution."

* Why Obama Wants Control of the Census - John Fund, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
Notable Quote: "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement, and it's called politics"

* Census Director to Work Directly with White House - Philip Rucker, Washington Post
Notable Quote: "President Obama has decided to have the director of the U.S. Census Bureau work directly with the White House [...] Under the Bush administration, the Census Bureau director reported to the commerce secretary."

* A Nominee’s Exit and the Nation’s Nose Count - Peter Baker, New York Times
Notable quote: "In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that under current law, sampling techniques could not be used to reapportion House seats from one state to another. But some experts still believe that sampling could be used in drawing district lines within the states and to determine money flows."

[Pseudonym]

I don't really understand the point of moving the control of the census. Did they provide any alternative reasons for the switch? I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it does seem like a major conflict of interest.

[Psudo]

The Democrats seem to think that the census has been systematically ignoring certain segments of the population (the poor, homeless, etc) which has led to questionable distribution of electoral votes. Obama is attempting to "fix" this situation by taking greater control of the census. Republicans retort that the system needs greater independence, not greater central control.

That is one of the great ideological differences between the two sides: centralization and oversight vs. independence and privatization.

[Psudo]

In a sense, this is the Downing Street Memo in reverse: Obama wants to "fix" the census, but Republicans and Democrats have different definitions of the word "fix" in that context. Democrats argue that Obama is making the census more accurate ("fix" as in "repair"), but Republicans argue that he's biasing the census in favor of Democrats ("fix" in the sense of "rig").

[BartSimpson]

He's a Chicago Democrat - stacking the deck is expected of that bunch of corrupt vermin.

[xerxes]

It's only fair. The Republicans have been misusing the census for years.

[Psudo]

The Republicans clearly have been accused of such, but there's the same or less evidence that Republicans have been twisting the census than there is that Obama is doing so now. And even if the motive is to fix the broken census, why fix it by putting it under the closer watch of the very office with the most motive to make the census wrong in their own favor? It should have more independence from partisan elected officials, not less.