The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that President Trump’s administration can end the counting for the 2020 census immediately. A lower court had ordered the Census Bureau to continue gathering population data through Oct. 31, but the Trump administration pushed back against that ruling, arguing that the count must be finished immediately to allow the Census Bureau enough time to meet the congressionally mandated Dec. 31 deadline for reporting initial results to the White House. The nationwide population tabulation, conducted once every 10 years, determines how many seats in the House of Representatives and Electoral College each state receives. Local governments and civil rights groups alleged in a lawsuit that a shortened census would exclude minorities from the official head count. In July, Trump had issued an executive order for the census to discount those in the country illegally, which a federal judge ruled illegal in September.