The U.S. has taken a census every 10 years since 1790, as the Constitution requires. So why is the 2010 census sparking such intense debate?

With an army of 1.4 million census takers and a budget of $15 billion (yes, billion), the 2010 census is being billed as the largest peacetime mobilization in American history. Planning for the census has been going on for 10 years, and Washington is spending $340 million on a national advertising campaign in 28 languages. The most expensive part of the census is hiring workers to go door-to-door to follow up on people who haven't mailed back their questionnaires. The government saves $85 million in follow-up costs, census officials say. That's why the census is spending so much on advertising to encourage people to mail back those forms.

The goal of all this time, money, and effort? Simply to get as many people as possible to fill out the questionnaires that will come to mailboxes later this month.

A national head count may sound like a pretty dry exercise, but the census actually has an enormous impact on our daily lives. It determines everything from how many Congressmen your state gets to whether a new Gap opens near your house and which channels cable companies offer in your area.

With so much at stake, it's no surprise that the census generates a lot of controversy, particularly on the issue of who gets counted, where people are counted, and who the census misses in its tally.

It all goes back to the Constitution, which requires the federal government to count the nation's residents every 10 years. Officials say that this year's 10-question form, among the shortest ever, should take about 10 minutes to complete. For the first time, 13 million bilingual questionnaires (in English and Spanish) will be distributed in areas with large numbers of Spanish speakers. Everyone will receive the same questions about age, race, gender, and whether the respondent sometimes lives elsewhere.

"It is a time for all of us… to get the word out that everyone needs to participate," says Census Bureau director Robert Groves.

The census has a huge political impact. It not only determines how many seats states get in the House of Representatives, it also determines how many votes they get in the Electoral College, the mechanism for electing Presidents: Electoral votes are determined by each state's total number of seats in both houses of Congress. So Indiana, for example, has nine seats in the House of Representatives, and two Senators, like every state, for a total of 11 electoral votes.

The census is also used to distribute some $450 billion in federal aid—for everything from schools to highways—using population-driven formulas. It also provides the basis for calculating many economic statistics like the poverty and unemployment rates.

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Source: Smith, Patricia. "Counting America." New York Times Upfront (Vol. 142, No. 10). 14+. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 02 Dec 2013.