“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.