President Obama's appointment of Dr. Robert Groves, a renowned survey expert, as head of the Census Bureau, along with $250 million devoted for outreach to “hard to count” groups, is a sign that 2010's numbers should offer a clearer picture of the country's demographic pastiche.

Aside from the undercounting of Latinos, various other groups may be not find an appropriate box to check off.

Dominican Americans, who have for years been pushing for more flexible categorization of ethnicity and nationality, since their self-identity often doesn't fit neatly into the standard Black, white, and Hispanic labels.

Federal law has blocked the Census Bureau from fully recognizing same-sex married couples, and same-sex couples with adopted children won't be recognized as two-parent families.

And folks who are just plain poor are likely to be missed, too: families living in motels, cars or on the streets are vulnerable to being ignored by census workers as the economic crisis leaves more people without a stable address.

So conservatives are naturally reluctant about accurately counting such historically disenfranchised and invisible groups--perhaps fearing what they might find. But the politicization of the census is only useful if it leads to truer political representation of who is living, working, and putting down roots in this country. To that end, communities will hopefully apply the better data a lot more often than once a decade.

Image: City of Carmel, Indiana