SALT LAKE CITY -- The U.S. Census Bureau has told Utah's elected leaders it won't count Mormon missionaries serving overseas in the nation's next head count.
Census Bureau officials -- rejecting Utah's lobbying efforts for the better part of a decade -- say there's no way to reliably count the overseas missionaries.
Utah says the omission cost the state an extra congressional seat in 2000, when Utah fell just 857 people short of receiving the last available slot in the U.S. House.
The Census Bureau does count military and federal employees serving overseas, and Rob Bishop, R-Utah, says it should include Mormons on proselytizing missions.
Census officials say an experiment in counting Americans abroad in 2004 turned into a "colossal failure."
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