As the counting of the nation's population begins this week with the 2010 census, one question rises above all others: Is cramming our mailboxes with another piece of of paperwork the best way to tally our population?

With America's use of computers dominating our shopping, banking and entertainment, it seems the goal of sending out old-fashioned mail-in forms to every American is the most inefficient way imaginable to get an accurate head count of America.

We all see that the U.S. postal system is suffering a slow death.

Just a few weeks ago, the US Postal Service said it would likely end Saturday delivery of the mail and trim its workforce by 50,000 full-time employees next year to stop an expected loss of $238 billion over the next 10 years.

Another challenge for the Washington head counters is that the ranks of the homeless have sharply increased over the past few years with the troubled economy. And more people are moving in with friends and relatives to wait out better economic times.

And for communities of color, the problems are magnified, because black and Latino households have a lower return rate of census forms than whites.

All that means is that more people will be missed by the census than previously believed.

It's hard to believe we still entrust such an important duty as counting the population to the U.S. mail, which sent out 120 million U.S. census forms this week to homes around the country. The count is used to divide up congressional seats and split up more than $400 billion in federal aid.

The stakes are high, but the count will likely be way off if the 2000 census is any measuring stick.

In the 2000 count, the census had an overcount of 1.3 million people mostly from duplicate counts of affluent whites with multiple homes. At the same time, census officials believe 4.5 million people were missed. And surprise - most of those were lower income people of color.

Every time I think about the U.S. census, I envision a rigged game of chance like those you see at roadside carnivals.

The wealthy public relations and advertising firms get their cut in from the $2.5 million in Super Bowl advertising alone. Affluent home owners get counted twice and an unduly large share of government aid that should be going to the needy.

All this makes it hard to resist the impulse to take that form and deposit it straight in to the garbage.

But I won't. I'll grit my teeth, hold my nose and fill it out with the hope that my tiny act of civic participation will make the U.S. census game a little less rigged.

And you should too, because at the end of the day, if we don't even attempt to be counted, then we can't complain about not receiving our due as citizens. Participating gives us a voice. Not participating renders us both mute and invisible. Will you be counted?