Mark Souder: “first off, this is not a question of an accurate count, it is a question of an accurate count versus a possibly…”

“first off, this is not a question of an accurate count, it is a question of an accurate count versus a possibly inaccurate guess or, more likely, a probable inaccurate guess. We hear all this talk about wanting to count people. The difference here is we would like to count people; the other side would like to estimate. They would like to guess where the people are, guess which city they are, take samples here and there from past experience and guess. The Constitution says we have to count. And that is really what this debate is about. Are we going to count real people, make every effort, spend whatever is necessary to count real people, or are we going to have imaginary people? There is not a lot of confidence right now in this country that either side would not attempt to cheat if they could do the estimating, because estimating depends on our assumptions. If it is not a real count, and we keep hearing there was an undercount last time, well, where they really counted, and they fixed the undercount, they can fix it. But if we are guessing what the undercount is, we will not really know because we are estimating.”