Jeff Miller: “We are talking about using sampling. Sampling, we all use it for polling. We read the polls in the newspapers all the…”

“We are talking about using sampling. Sampling, we all use it for polling. We read the polls in the newspapers all the time. Politicians use them all the time. Marketing companies will use polling. Polling and sampling is used when you do not have enough time or money to take a full census, which is a full count. But the Constitution requires a full count every 10 years. In between, we will use sampling. It has got an appropriate role because you cannot go out and count everybody every year. The plan that has now been proposed the way it would work is, they would do the full count as best they could. Then they would take a sample of 300,000 units, housing units, and use those numbers to then adjust the 270 million people in this country. You have population numbers for the State of Florida, the State of Arizona, you will have it for the city of Phoenix, the county of Maricopa County, the county of Manatee County or Sarasota County. But then it gets down to the numbers that you use for redistricting are small units, the smallest units. And if you look at how they draw them on a computer map, these are census blocks. How do you go and adjust a census block with 20 housing units in it based on a sample of 300,000 nationwide?”