Counting On Illegal Aliens -------------------------- By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY April 13, 2009 Who Counts?: The next U.S. census chief wants to count people who aren't there. The acting director wants to count people who shouldn't be here. And Acorn will help do the counting. _________________________________________________________________ Back when he was the Census Bureau's associate director of statistical design, Robert M. Groves, nominated to be the next director of the bureau, recommended that the 1990 census be statistically adjusted to correct an alleged undercount of minorities in urban areas -- areas that tend to vote heavily Democratic. Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher overruled him, saying the use of "statistical sampling," as it's known, was a form of "political tampering." The Supreme Court later ruled in 1999 that statistical sampling couldn't be used to apportion House seats among the states, but didn't rule out using estimates to redraw district lines within a state. Statistical sampling is a technique akin to polling. You select what you consider a representative sample and extrapolate your findings over the general population. The problem is that Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution forbids it. It requires an "actual enumeration" of all Americans every 10 years, not a guess based on statistical sampling. That means counting real, live, breathing people. The Founding Fathers weren't fools. Sampling techniques have changed, but human nature has not. If the Census Bureau were allowed to use sampling, it would have to develop formulas for its samples. How you structure the formula affects the results. It's possible a party in power might determine the desired result first, then determine the sampling formula needed to achieve it. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke says there are no plans to use statistical sampling in the 2010 census, but there will be enormous pressure to do so. Remember that Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination to be Commerce Secretary when plans to run the census out of the White House under Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel were revealed. On April 1, Secretary Locke joined several activist groups, including the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a press conference to talk about efforts to ensure a full count of Latinos in the 2010 census. After the press conference, acting director Thomas Mesenbourg said the Census Bureau intended to reach out to illegal aliens through "trusted" community organizations. "It's more than just the Census Bureau telling them that it's safe," said Mesenbourg. "We need somebody that they view as a trusted voice -- somebody in a community organization that can assure them it's safe." One of those trusted organizations, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, infamous for its documented participation in vote fraud, signed on as a national partner with the Census Bureau in February. It will help recruit the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door to door. Acorn has helped ensure "people" like Mary Poppins and Jive Turkey were registered to vote. We wouldn't want the census to miss them. Groves has spent decades researching how to improve response rates, and apparently one of the ways being considered is to remind people of the federal goodies that come along with being counted. Page 24 of the Census Bureau's 351-page 2010 plan for the census advises that "messages that increase knowledge of the benefits of filling out the Census improve motivation and favorability towards Census participation." People should be reminded that the "Census determines how over $300 billion per year in federal funds get divided among states and local areas of the country." This is even if the people are illegally here or are just estimated to be here. The nation depends on an accurate count of who and where we are. But it shouldn't be used to create a permanent class dependent on government and the drawing of lines to create a permanent Democratic majority.