The 2010 Census Address Canvassing Operational Assessment documents planning assumptions, activities, results, statistics, and analysis. Qualitative information presented, such as lessons learned, was collected from the Address List Development Operations Implementation Team and subject matter experts. These teams and experts were involved in the development and implementation of the operation. Quantitative in formation comes from various decennial systems used for the operation.

The Address Canvassing operation was the earliest field operation of the 2010 Census. It was scheduled to be conducted from April 6 to July 17, 2009. The operation actually started in eight Early Opening Local Census Offices one week early on March 30, 2009 and finished one week ahead of schedule on July 10, 2009. It was the first time the Census Bureau deployed an automated field data collection operation of this size during a decennial census. The operation was managed out of 151 field offices – known as Early Opening Local Census Offices – located across the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The purpose of the Address Canvassing operation was to:

• Ensure that the Census Bureau’s address list and maps were as exact as possible, which was vital to construct a sampling frame to use for an accurate enumeration of the population.
• Verify the existing Census Living Quarter’s inventory and then the potential changes to it from the Local Update of Census Addresses program, allowing the Census Bureau to provide feedback to the local governments that participated in the program.