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Endnotes

 

     
  1. For the past five censuses, the Bureau has measured the total population through demographic analysis, a process that answers “How many people?” at the national level.  Demographic analysis simply uses administrative records to add births, subtract deaths, and account for immigration to produce a national total.  It also produces a reliable measurement of the undercount of Black Americans.  Unfortunately, demographic analysis does not answer “Where?” since birth and death records do not locate people within states and smaller areas.  
  2. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Report to Congress – The Plan for Census 2000 (Washington, DC,  August 1997), 6.  
  3. Since 1970, the Bureau has mailed a census form to most known residences in the country.  The vast majority of people counted in the census are counted because they voluntarily fill out and mail back those forms.  As a result, an accurate and comprehensive address list is generally cited as the single most important aspect of a successful census.  That will not change in 2000.  The census address list is known as the Master Address File (MAF).  In 2000, the MAF will list approximately 118 million addresses.  
  4. PL 103-430, § 2(a) (31 October 1994)  
  5. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Committee on Adjustment of Postcensal Estimates (CAPE Committee), Assessment of Accuracy of Adjusted Versus Unadjusted 1990 Census Base for use in Intercensal Estimates (Washington, DC, 7 August 1992).  The CAPE Committee was formed in 1991.  Meeting regularly with the Director of the Census, this “senior level group of the Bureau of the Census statisticians and demographers” was to determine whether the sampling methodology rejected for adjustment in the 1990 census could be refined for use in intercensal population estimates, which are not used for apportionment.  
  6. In Wisconsin v. City of New York, et. al., the Court ruled the Secretary’s reasoning was sound, and the decision not to adjust was “a reasonable choice in an area where technical experts disagree.”  One of the main points of the Secretary’s reasoning was that while a PES adjustment might improve numerical accuracy at a national level, it would not improve distributive accuracy at state and local levels.  In other words, the PES might answer “How many?” but would not answer “Where?”  
  7. During budget negotiations in November 1998, Congress and the Clinton Administration again compromised over the census, requiring further legislative action to continue funding to Commerce, Justice and State Departments past 15 June 1999.  The Bureau of the Census budget is contained in the Department of Commerce appropriation.
  8. Wisconsin v. City of New York (1996).  
  9. Ibid.  “the primary criterion for accuracy should be distributive accuracy – that is, getting most nearly correct the proportions of people in different areas.”  
  10. Preparing for the 2000 Census: Interim Report II, ed. Andrew A. White and Keith F. Rust, by Panel to Evaluate Alternative Census Methodologies, (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997), 11.  
  11. PL 105-119, § 210(f)(2)(A) (1997)  
  12. John Thompson and Robert E. Fay, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census 2000: The Statistical Issues, (Washington, DC, 1998).  “[T]here will be an issue of how far the ICM data can be disaggregated geographically.  For example, in a strict state-based design, there will be too little data to support a separate Hispanic estimate within many states, and the proposed approach of combining races, such as Blacks and Hispanics, provides a less direct estimate than the separation of these groups in the 1990 PES. There will be additional difficulty in measuring undercount for other racial groups…”  
  13. Most local districts are less than a tenth of the size of a congressional district.  Many are only a few thousand or a few hundred people.  Since local government units are smaller, the need for block level data for local redistricting is actually greater.  At these sizes, small differences in the population can result in very large percentage deviations.  
  14. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Report to Congress – The Plan for Census 2000 (Washington, DC,  August 1997), 3.  
  15. U.S. Census Monitoring Board, Public Hearing, 16 December 1998.  
  16. For all practical purposes, the census is the major source of information federal agencies can use to distribute funds nationally.  In 2000, federal agencies will distribute an estimated $182 billion in aid through 20 programs using census data.  In 1998, Medicaid alone distributed an estimated $104.4 billion using census data, and Title I grants for local education anticipated distributing $7.5 billion.  
  17. Constitution, art. I, §2, cl. 3.  
  18. Choldin, Harvey, Looking for the Last Percent (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 232.  
  19. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962).  “One person, one vote” was actually coined in Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963) which upheld, extended and clarified the Baker ruling. “One person, one vote” has two distinct branches, but both demand distributional (i.e. local) accuracy in the census.  
  20. Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964)  
  21. Karcher v. Dagget, 426 U.S. 725 (1983). Although the difference between the largest and the smallest districts in New Jersey was less than one percent (less than the national undercount), and on average each district varied from the ideal population by only 0.1384 percent, the Court found the differences in size of districts was not the result of a good-faith effort to achieve equality.  
  22. David C. Huckabee, Congressional Research Service, Library of Commerce, Congressional Redistricting: Federal Law Controls a State Process (Washington, DC, 20 December 1993), 32.  
  23. The Bureau plans for Census 2000 include a “planning database” in which the Bureau “… assembles a range of housing, demographic and socioeconomic variables that are correlated with nonresponse and undercounting.”  The database provides a systematic way to “identify potentially difficult-to-enumerate areas … for special attention in 2000.” J. Gregory Robinson and Antonio Bruce, The Planning Database: Description and Examples of its Targeting Capability (Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 18 September 1998 (revised 5 October 1998)), 2.  
  24. To achieve fairness in voting and funding, the groups of interest are racial and ethnic.  Although the Bureau wants the most accurate count of the whole population, and a differential undercount of any group weakens the usefulness of the census, there are no special imperatives to address some undercounts.  For instance, the fugitive population or the “deadbeat-dad” population are most surely differentially undercounted, and probably always will be.  However, fugitives and deadbeat dads, unlike many racially and ethnically concentrated neighborhoods, do not vote together, or generally share similar social and cultural values.  
  25. The undercount rate for a group is the percent by which the count for that group falls short of the true count.  One measure of the differential undercount for a group is the absolute difference between the undercount rate for that group and the overall undercount rate.  If the Hispanic undercount rate is reduced to 3 percent and the overall undercoverage rate to 2 percent, then the differential undercount is reduced to |.03 - .02| = .01 .  
  26. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Report to Congress – The Plan for Census 2000 (Washington, DC,  August 1997), 3.  “While children under the age of 18 represented 26 percent of the total national population [in 1990], they accounted for 52 percent of the undercount.”  
  27. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Report to Congress – The Plan for Census 2000 (Washington, DC, August 1997), 6.  
  28. The 1990 census recorded “Black,” rather than “African-American,” under the questions concerning race.  That has changed on the 2000 questionnaire.  Question 8 on the current questionnaire lists “Black, African Am., or Negro” as an option. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census 2000 (Washington, DC, 1998).  
  29. “The Diane Rehm Show” on National Public Radio, WAMU in Washington, DC, 11 January 1999.  
  30. Wisconsin v. City of New York (1996).  
  31. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Committee on Adjustment of Postcensal Estimates (CAPE Committee), Assessment of Accuracy of Adjusted Versus Unadjusted 1990 Census Base for use in Intercensal Estimates (Washington, DC, 7 August 1992), 1.  
  32. John Thompson and Robert E. Fay, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census 2000: The Statistical Issues, (Washington, DC, 1998).  
  33. Congress, House, Subcommittee on the Census, Hearing on Oversight of the 2000 Census, 106th Cong, 2nd sess., 17 September 1998.  Statements of Leo Breiman, Professor Emeritus of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley; Donald Ylvisaker, Department of Statistics, UCLA; Robert A. Koyak, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Operations Research, Naval Postgraduate School; Martin Wells, Cornell University; Lawrence Brown, Meiers Busch Professor of Statistics, University of Pennsylvania.  
  34. Preparing for the 2000 Census: Interim Report II, ed. Andrew A. White and Keith F. Rust, by Panel to Evaluate Alternative Census Methodologies, (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997), 11.  
  35. Federal Register, (Washington, DC, 4 January 1993), vol. 58, no. 1, docket no. 920897-2347.  
  36. When asked the difference between the PES (1990 sample) and the ICM (2000 sample), Bureau officials consistently cited the ICM’s larger sample size.  Although the national sample is five times larger, 750,000 households in 2000 compared to 170,000 in 1990, this assertion is misleading.  Since the Bureau has decided to employ direct sampling of states in 2000, the 750,000 households in 2000, unlike in 1990, will be divided into separate samples for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.  The total sample size for any one state in 2000, then, will be much, much smaller than the sample used in 1990.  
  37. Lawrence D. Brown, et al, Statistical Controversies in Census 2000, (Berkeley, CA:  Department of Statistics, 25 August 1998), 20.  
  38. John Thompson and Robert E. Fay, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census 2000: The Statistical Issues, (Washington, DC, 1998), 8.  
  39. Barbara Everitt Bryant, Moving Power and Money: The Politics of Census Taking, (Ithaca, NY: New Strategist Publication, Inc., 1995), 138.  
  40. The Board has requested a complete list of localities that participated in 1990’s review, and the number of people added as a result.  The Bureau responded with a request for payment of $15,000 for this information, which the Board is considering.  In the meantime, the Board has relied on public records, media reports and direct interviews for specific information.  
  41. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1990 Decennial Census Local Review Program Information Booklet (Washington, DC, 1987), 4.  
  42. This was practically and economically infeasible for a number of localities in 1990.  David Farber, Greenacres, Florida city manager in 1990, reported “The 15-day period was just not long enough to correlate the raw data [the Census Bureau] provided you with.”  In 1993, Greenacres paid $80,000 for a special census that found 3,283 additional residents.  
  43. Department of Commerce, Office of the Inspector General, Additional Steps Needed to Improve Local Update of Census Addresses for the 2000 Decennial Census Inspection Report No. IPE-10756 (Washington, DC, September 1998), 7.  
  44. U.S. Census Monitoring Board, Public Hearing, 6 November 1998, 89-109.  
  45. U.S. Census Monitoring Board, Public Hearing, 5 August 1998, 83.  
  46. Department of Commerce, Office of the Inspector General, Sacramento Dress Rehearsal Experience Suggests Changes to Improve Results of the 2000 Decennial Census Audit Report No. ESD-10784-8-0001 (Washington, DC, September 1998), 6.  
  47. Susan C Wajer, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, The Final Results From the Parolee/Probationer Coverage Improvement Program and the Parolee/Probationer Coverage Improvement Follow-up Program (Washington DC, 1990), 1.  
  48. Ibid.  
  49. Ibid.  
  50. Ibid., 11.  
  51. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, "1990 Census of Population and Housing Public Law 94-171 Data [Official and Adjusted] Age by Race and Hispanic Origin" (Washington, DC, 1998).  
  52. Susan C Wajer, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, The Final Results From the Parolee/Probationer Coverage Improvement Program and the Parolee/Probationer Coverage Improvement Follow-up Program (Washington DC, 1990), Attachment, 1.  
  53. “In addition, the efforts required will detract from a more pressing need to build a consensus for the use of sampling to account for nonresponding households.”  Robert Marx, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Census2000 Decision Memorandum No. 10:  Decision to Drop Plans to Use Administrative Records to Derive the Census Count for Some Non-responding Housholds (Washington, DC, 4 February 1997).  
  54. Susan C. Wajer, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Results from the 1990 Search/Match Operation: Add Rates and Erroneous Enumeration Rates by Search Form Type (Washington, DC, 1990), 15.  
  55. Ibid., 9.  
  56. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Committee on Adjustment of Postcensal Estimates (CAPE Committee), Assessment of Accuracy of Adjusted Versus Unadjusted 1990 Census Base for use in Intercensal Estimates (Washington, DC, 7 August 1992),15  
  57. Preparing for the 2000 Census: Interim Report II, ed. Andrew A. White and Keith F. Rust, by Panel to Evaluate Alternative Census Methodologies, (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997), 67.  
  58. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Probation and Parole Statistics: Summary Findings,” (Washington, DC, 1998), http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pandp.htm.  
  59. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Report to Congress – The Plan for Census 2000 (Washington, DC, August 1997), 3.  
  60. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “1990 Census of Population and Housing Public Law 94-171 Data [Official and Adjusted] Age by Race and Hispanic Origin” (Washington, DC, 1998).  
  61. J. Gregory Robinson and Antonio Bruce, Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, The Planning Database: Description and Examples of its Targeting Capability (Washington, DC 18 September 1998 (revised 5 October 1998)), 7.  
  62. Department of Health and Humans Services, Health Care Financing Administration, HCFA-2082 Report (Washington, DC: Health Care Financing Administration, 20 October 1998), Table 28.  
  63. General Accounting Office, General Government Division, Decennial Census – Overview of Historical Issues, GAO/GGD-97-142, July 1997, 14.  
  64. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance, (Washington, DC, 7 October 1998), http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ofa/.  
  65. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance, Change in Welfare Caseloads: As of June 1998 (Washington, DC, 1998).  
  66. Office of Family Assistance, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF): First Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance, August 1998), Section VII, Demographic and Financial Characteristics.  
  67. Department of Agriculture, Food Stamp Program, “Some Food Stamp Facts” (Washington, DC, 1998), http://www.usda.gov/fcs/stamps/fsfacts.htm.  
  68. Department of Agriculture, Food Stamp Program, “Nutrition Program Facts: Food Stamp Program” (Washington, DC, 1998), http://www.usda.gov/fcs/stamps/fspfor~1.htm.  
  69. Health Care Financing Administration, “Health Care Financing Administration Medical Statistical Information System (MSIS) Project Overview” (Washington, DC, 6 July 1998), 2.  
  70. Ibid.  
  71. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration, “HCFA 2082 Reporting Through the Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS)” (Washington, DC, 15 September 1998), http://www.hcfa.gov/medicaid/m2082.htm.  
  72. Department of Health and Human Services, Healthcare Financing Administration, “Health Care Financing Administration Medicaid Statistical Information System (MSIS) Project Overview,” 5.
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