Census Uses Soft Sell in Final Head Count : Population: A Sunday sweep was aimed at tallying those people who who were missed during the main count.

Census workers shed suits and clipboards Sunday and instead lured customers by using an ancient and proven marketing technique: the balloon.

One toddler’s eyes grew rounder and her mouth dropped open as she spotted Albert Molina blowing up blue and yellow balloons at the Rancho Santiago College swap meet. She trotted straight over, an uncle in tow.

While a beaming Molina tied a yellow balloon to her plump wrist, he asked the uncle in Spanish in a low-key way: “Have you filled out the census form yet?”

The soft-sell technique worked like a charm. By noon, a flock of small children wearing church clothes, beach gear or Ninja Turtle T-shirts were standing in line at the helium pump, and workers had given out or filled out census forms for 20 families who had not yet completed them.

Sunday’s sweep was part of a nationwide campaign called: “Were You Counted?” Aimed at catching those who were missed during the main count on April 1, the campaign includes radio, television and newspaper advertisements, posters and booths such as the ones set up Sunday at the swap meet, the Fiesta Marketplace in downtown Santa Ana and the Asian Village shopping center in Westminster.

Nationally, the Census Bureau estimates that 99% of American households have been counted, though the census is only 94.4% complete in California.

“We’re hoping to get as close to the 99% mark as possible, or higher,” said Molina, census awareness specialist for the Santa Ana district. “In the long run, I think we are going to get numbers that are surprising.”

Molina estimates that the count in his district, which includes Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove, Stanton and half of Orange, is roughly 98% complete. And the vast majority of passers-by at the swap meet said they had already filled out their forms.

Counting the stragglers is no simple matter, however.

Some people living in newly built houses never received census forms; others did not receive Spanish-language forms. Still others moved on April 1 and took their forms with them to their new addresses, creating a computer nightmare since the Census Bureau has painstakingly assigned an identifying number for every address in the United States, workers explained.

“They should have picked April 15 instead, but I guess they’ve been doing it this way for 20 years,” said coder Elizabeth Johnson, who helps straighten out such glitches.

In addition, 13,000 households in the Santa Ana census district alone reported having eight or more residents, a larger number than had been expected. The census form only has room for seven names.

Each of these homes, some of which house two or three families, must be visited by one of the district’s 85 census workers.

“We hope to finish it by the middle of this month,” Molina said.

Among the uncounted, Molina said, are a number of young men who are transient or have come to the area without their families and are living with friends or boarding.

“They’re working, or not at home, or in a lot of cases they’ve moved,” Molina explained. “They get left off (the forms) because they’re not a close relative, or they’re just a friend staying there, or a roommate. Even though we tell people to count everybody living there, they don’t.”

As each new census form comes in, it is checked against previous reports from that address to avoid double-counting, Molina said.

Jolanda Amaya, 32, who was buttonholed by a census worker at the Fiesta Marketplace, said she had seen census announcements on television.

“I asked for a form in Spanish, but it never came,” she said. The Guatemalan-born mother of three, who works in a tablecloth factory, said she was anxious to be counted.

“Because it will mean more funds for Hispanics,” she said in Spanish. “They don’t know how many of us there are. That’s why we have a census.”