466
Opinion of the Court
the Census Bureau imputation process within the relevant statutory phrase.
On the other hand, the two processes differ in several critical respects: (1) In respect to the nature of the enterprise, the librarian's sampling represents an overall approach to the counting problem that from the beginning relies on data that will be collected from only a part of the total population, Declaration of Howard Hogan ¶¶ 19-23, App. 257-259 (hereinafter Hogan); (2) in respect to methodology, the librarian's sampling focuses on using statistically valid sample-selection techniques to determine what data to collect, ¶¶ 29-30, id., at 261-262; Declaration of Joseph Waksberg ¶¶ 6, 10, id., at 290-294 (hereinafter Waksberg); and (3) in respect to the immediate objective, the librarian's sampling seeks immediately to extrapolate the sample's relevant population characteristics to the whole population, Hogan ¶ 30, id., at 262; Declaration of David W. Peterson ¶ 8, id., at 352 (herein-after Peterson).
By way of contrast, the librarian's imputation (1) does not represent an overall approach to the counting problem that will rely on data collected from only a subset of the total population, since it is a method of processing data (giving a value to missing data), not its collection, ¶¶ 21, 29, id., at 257-258, 261-262; it (2) does not rely upon the same statistical methodology generally used for sample selection, U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Decennial Statistical Studies Division, Census 2000 Procedures and Operations, Memorandum Series B-17, Feb. 28, 2001, id., at 194-196; Waksberg ¶¶ 6, 10, id., at 290, 293-294; and it (3) has as its immediate objective determining the characteristics of missing individual books, not extrapolating characteristics from the sample to the entire book population, Hogan ¶ 17, id., at 256-257; Peterson
¶9, id., at 352.
These same differences distinguish Bureau imputation in the year 2000 census from "the statistical method known as 'sampling.' " 13 U. S. C. § 195. The nature of the Bureau's
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