Elected officials sporadically cut census up during spring (7)
I believe the answer is:
council
'elected officials sporadically cut' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'census up during spring' is the wordplay.
'census up' becomes 'unc' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'during' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'spring' becomes 'coil' (coil spring is a kind of spring).
'unc' inserted inside 'coil' is 'COUNCIL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for council that I've seen before include "Committee, to arrange the business of a society, say" , "legislative body" , "Local administrative body" , "local authority" , "Unit of local government" .)