Every ten years the same question comes up. Is an estimation the same thing as an enumeration? The latest incarnation of the question is in Adam Korzeniewski’s post at The American Mind:
Contrary to its image in the mainstream media, the Census does not behave like a studiously nonpartisan agency. Many of those in leadership made their negative opinions of former president Trump clear. Historically, Census Apportionment numbers appear to favor liberal, blue states over conservative, red states in the final rounds of representative allocations. This likely stems from the use of “hot-deck imputation,†a controversial method where the Census will use a nearest, most similar neighbor to impute the characteristic, population, etc., of a household who does not fill out the Census or respond to enumeration attempts. A more radical method called “count imputation†creates a whole person at an unresponsive household. These are persons without available Federal or state records. In Utah v. Evans, 536 U.S. 452 (2002), the Supreme Court left imputation to the Secretary of Commerce’s discretion because, in the majority view, it does not constitute statistical sampling, prohibited in 13 U.S.C. §195. It can be argued that hot-deck imputation favors more liberal states over more conservative ones, more urban states over more rural states. Specifically, it favors states that have areas of low response rates to the Census.
The Census justifies count imputation methodology through comparison to existing, known datasets. But this is an information asymmetry. Epistemologically speaking, you cannot compare an unknown unknown to a known unknown variable by simply randomizing a sample of known quantities. The quality of these households overwhelmingly self-responding to the Census, or responding to Census Enumerators (workers), makes these households sufficiently distinct from nonresponsive households with zero records. While imputing missing demographic characteristics makes sense, adding entire people does not. In 2000, the Census Bureau imputed 1,172,144 people and in 2010, 1,163,462.
After field data collection, the Census begins data processing. This phase showed a discrepancy of tens of thousands of persons in particular Northeastern states, primarily centered around “Group Quarters,†a special kind of residence that the occupants don’t normally rent or own, and where they usually receive a service, such as a nursing home or university. Normally, these are enumerated separately by specialists trained to handle their unique circumstances. But these facilities were difficult to access in 2020 because of the pandemic-related lockdowns.
Given the complications, the Census decided to apply “Group Quarters Imputation,†a process that was never brought to the states to give input on, nor practiced in the 2020 Decennial Testing Phases. This process created hypothetical persons missing in the data, but it is not an imputation method by definition. This “Group Quarters Imputation†used a linear regression analysis based off estimates from the Group Quarters themselves, yielding a ratio by which Census analysts would impute the population of each facility. The use of the term “imputation†in this case is egregious. It constitutes statistical sampling, which is forbidden by law for Census enumeration. This method also heavily favors the Northeast because of the density of college campuses in that region and the fact that the lockdown was the most severe there during the Decennial Census.
Article I, Section 2 of the U. S. constitutions says:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States… according to their respective Numbers… . The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years.
To the best of my knowledge the U. S. was the first country to adopt such a provision—the first of its censuses was in 1790 and took 18 months to accomplish. I haven’t been able to discover when estimation techniques augmented actual enumeration in coming up with the census totals. As long as money and power is involved in the census resuits I don’t anticipate controversy over the census to abate.
However, from a methodological standpoint simultaneously interpolating and extrapolating is problematic. In the trade it’s known as “making stuff up”.
The Constitution is pretty much a dead letter. People argue over when it was cancelled, and Lincoln and the Civil War are popular choices. However, my vote is for Chief Justice John Marshall, when he usurped the power to judge the validity of laws.
There is no clause in the Constitution delegating such a power. None of the Common Law countries allowed judicial review of acts of parliament until about a generation ago. And then they had to enact legislation granting such power to the courts.
The usurpation has been pernicious. It is one of the factors that has led to the politicization of our courts and justice system, which is better described as a system of kangaroo courts.
Its just not feasible to actually count everyone without spending tons of money or being incredibly intrusive and infringing on constitutional rights. As long as a good faith, consistent effort tis made I am OK with it.
Steve
Define “good faith”.
Note that the estimation methods being used are already inconsistent.