Cite as: 536 U. S. 452 (2002)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
Business Research 32 (1960) (together indicating that the selection of nonrepresentative or "biased" samples may be permissible, preferred, or even deliberate). Finally, even if random and unbiased selection methods were assumed to be more accurate than other methods of sampling, it would make little sense to construe § 195 as prohibiting only the most accurate forms of sampling.
Third, the majority contends that imputation is not sampling because the Bureau never meant to engage in sampling. Along these lines, the majority stresses that the Bureau's "overall approach to the counting problem," ante, at 466, did not reflect a "deliberate decision," ante, at 471, to engage in sampling. Instead, according to the majority, the Bureau's "immediate objective was the filling in of missing data," in an effort to ascertain population information on "individual" units, not "extrapolating the characteristics of the 'donor' units to an entire population." Ante, at 467.
The majority provides no statistical basis for defining sampling in terms of intent or immediate objectives, however, and to do so would allow the Bureau to engage in any form of sampling so long as it was characterized as something else or appeared to serve some nonsampling objective. But that would render hollow the statutory prohibition on sampling for apportionment purposes. The majority allows this to happen, however, by focusing on the Bureau's "immediate objective" of filling in missing data, which overlooks the fact that the Bureau estimated nonresponse using a selected subset of the population and imputation was simply a means to that end.
Fourth, the majority contends that some definitions of sampling, if viewed broadly, contain no limiting principle and thus might encompass even "the mental process of inference." Ante, at 470. But recognizing the Bureau's use of imputation as a form of sampling does not require that sampling be read so broadly. Instead, sampling under § 195 can be confined to situations where a selected subset of the popu-
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