Cite as: 536 U. S. 452 (2002)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
naire but were successfully enumerated through other means. This highlights the Bureau's reliance on a selected portion of collected data.
Next, the Bureau used the population of the donor group as a direct estimate of the number of people who had not been successfully enumerated. This estimate related to the "population as a whole" because it was an estimate of the overall number of people in the population who had not responded (or had not provided a consistent response, see ante, at 457) to the Bureau's survey efforts. See, e. g., F. Yates, Sampling Methods for Censuses and Surveys 64, 130 (2d rev. ed. 1953) (describing the use of sampling to estimate survey nonresponse); ante, at 471 (describing the sampling at issue in House of Representatives as one for estimating nonresponse). Because the imputation process selected a portion of the population to estimate the number of people who had not been successfully enumerated, the process constituted a form of sampling.
To counter this conclusion, the majority contends that the Bureau's use of imputation differs from sampling in several different ways. First, the majority argues that the Bureau's use of imputation differs quantitatively from other forms of sampling, suggesting that estimating nonresponse is not sampling when the amount of nonresponse is very small. See ante, at 471 (contrasting the use of sampling to estimate a 10% level of nonresponse with the use of imputation to estimate a 0.4% level of nonresponse). But the majority provides no statistical basis to suggest that sampling is confined to "large" estimates. Moreover, we have already decided that the extent of the Bureau's reliance on sampling is irrelevant when we held that § 195 prohibits sampling for apportionment purposes regardless of whether it is used as a " 'substitute' " for or " 'supplement' " to a traditional enumeration. House of Representatives, supra, at 342.
Indeed, the majority more generally acknowledges that the Bureau's reliance on imputation may be distinguishable
483
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