Editor's note: A version of this comic was originally published in December 2020.
![Hi! I'm NPR correspondent Hansi Lo Wang. Did you know the census helps determine how much power your state will have in Congress and the Electoral College for the next 10 years? [Image description: Hansi, depicted as a cat with glasses, waves hello.]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/68fad51/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x2560+0+0/resize/880x1100!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2021%2F04%2F06%2F1_custom-c738ef5e3584acc0275a92ccd175d7d5cca3c9af.jpg)
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![Think of the process as a relay race. The runners are the commerce secretary (who oversees the Census Bureau), the president and Congress. The batons are state population counts and House reapportionment numbers. [Image description: Hansi puts on an exercise outfit as he talks.]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6c6225a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x2560+0+0/resize/880x1100!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2021%2F04%2F06%2F3_custom-e1a99dbb032f546e54679ca115b21246f7020df0.png)
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![How this relay ends will set up how much representation your state gets for the coming decade. Then, after the next census, another relay begins. [Image description: Hansi looks at a 2030 finish line in the distance.]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7848aa7/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2048x2560+0+0/resize/880x1100!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2021%2F04%2F06%2F6_custom-fe645d560c364f97c12af33230398555b777b004.png)
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Edited by Acacia Squires and Nicole Werbeck, with copy-editing by Preeti Aroon
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
