Trump officials propose sweeping changes to the census that would reshape voting maps

NEW: Trump officials propose sweeping changes to the US census that would stop asking about race and exclude millions of residents from the count, a move that could reshape voting maps across the country.

The Trump administration wants to rewrite the American census.

Officials have proposed sweeping changes that would stop asking people about their race, and would exclude millions of residents from the count entirely. The census sounds boring until you remember what it does. It decides how many seats each state gets in Congress, and how voting maps get drawn everywhere in the country.

So cutting millions of people out of the count isn't a paperwork tweak. If those residents live mostly in big cities and border states, those places lose representation, and the map shifts before a single vote is cast. That's why census fights always end up in front of judges, and this one almost certainly will too. Trump tried a citizenship question in his first term and the Supreme Court blocked it.

The next census locks in political power for a decade. Whoever controls the count, controls the map.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.