# Moving the Census to the White House? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628 "2009-02-13T01:32:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/21 "2009-02-13T16:20:26Z")
> [@staballoy](#): > > Nevermind all the high-flown rhetoric about underrepresentation of minorities. Moving the census process to the White House ensures that the numbers can be manipulated to give the left the results they want. This will make lopsided apportionment and gerrymandering easier for them. It’s a power grab, like the so-called Fairness Doctrine they wish to reimplement. I don’t listen to Limbaugh _et al_, so my personal ox isn’t being gored, but the left control the White House and both houses of Congress, and whine that things aren’t fair. What a lying bunch of greedy hypocrites. Tom Delay and Co. Gerrymandered Texas back in the mid 2000’s… > **[DownWithTyranny!: DELAY'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL, RACIST TEXAS GERRYMANDER COMING...](https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2005/12/delays-unconstitutional-racist-texas.html)** but I don’t recall your protest of same. And then the Supreme Court heard the case: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/28/AR2006062800660.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/28/AR2006062800660.html) “But with six justices producing 123 pages of opinions, without any five of them able to agree on how to define an unconstitutional gerrymander, politicians of both parties said that the ruling leaves the door wide open to attempts to copy the DeLay strategy in other states.” ---
**Author:** ![staballoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@staballoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/staballoy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/22 "2009-02-13T18:40:23Z")
[\*Tom Delay and Co. Gerrymandered Texas back in the mid 2000’s… [http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/...ist-texas.html](http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/...ist-texas.html) but I don’t recall your protest of same.]\* I guess at that time I was too busy enjoying the gerrymandering going on CA. The census manipulation is part of a 3-pronged assault on individual liberties, along with the previously mentioned misnamed Fairness Doctrine, and the left’s Holy Grail, the Employee Free Choice Act, which will allow union thugs to bully and pressgang employees into labor union membership. Ah, Change We Can Believe In. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/23 "2009-02-13T18:45:31Z")
> [@staballoy](#): > > [\*Tom Delay and Co. Gerrymandered Texas back in the mid 2000’s… > > [http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/...ist-texas.html](http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/...ist-texas.html) > > but I don’t recall your protest of same.]\* > > I guess at that time I was too busy enjoying the gerrymandering going on CA. The census manipulation is part of a 3-pronged assault on individual liberties, along with the previously mentioned misnamed Fairness Doctrine, and the left’s Holy Grail, the Employee Free Choice Act, which will allow union thugs to bully and pressgang employees into labor union membership. Ah, Change We Can Believe In. Oh my. It must be hell for you. ---
**Author:** ![staballoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@staballoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/staballoy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/24 "2009-02-13T18:53:31Z")
> [@BarnOwl](#): > > Oh my. It must be hell for you. Nope, I just live my life while marveling at the capacity of people to swallow the lies that they are fed. Can’t do anything about it except contribute to the National Right to Work Committee, and work for candidates who believe in equitable apportionment, free speech, and the right to refuse to pay tribute to union hacks. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/25 "2009-02-13T19:33:29Z")
> [@MeDrewNotYou](#): > > You say that this is traditionally understood, but is there any state or federal laws/rules/precedents that explicitly deal with how to count people? And is there anything unconstitutional or unlawful about sampling or using (presumably sound) statistical methods? tbonham answered this well, I think. > [@BrandonR](#): > > What’s wrong with doing an actual head count but using statistical sampling to represent the underrepresented? One of the problems is that the census attempts to be an exact count, down to the house-by-house and block-by-block level. In other words, when census bureau says there are 327 people living in East Flyspeck IA, they can name them and give their addresses. It’s a highly _defensible_ number. It’s one thing to say “we figure there are probably 10,000 black people in Ohio that we didn’t count.” It’s another thing to say where exactly one could hope to fins them: Cleveland? Akron? Do they just wander around? How many are married? Do they have jobs? What is their income? The other door it opens is that not all statisticians agree on the sampling formula: why 10,000 and not 11,000 or 20,000 or 5,000? The assumptions of the statisticians can be highly debated. An actual enumeration may not be accurate, but it is definitive: we counted all the people we found, and here are their addresses. A sample, even if it is more accurate, is never that definitive. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/26 "2009-02-13T23:23:40Z")
there was a suggestion at my local census office; if the government wants to do an accurate and cheap count, just advertise that you should go to office x at address y, fill out a form and get one thousand dollars cash. or the wonderful money truck will be in your neighbourhood on xx day. be at home, fill out the form, get cash. sounded logical to me. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628/27 "2009-02-14T00:03:54Z")
> [@staballoy](#): > > the Employee Free Choice Act, which will allow union thugs to bully and pressgang employees into labor union membership. That’s actually not what it does at all, but at least you didn’t call it the Employee Forced Choice Act. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moving-the-census-to-the-white-house/485628.md?page=1)