Washington — Calling it the "most accurate census in history," the Bush administration refused to adjust the 2000 head count in a decision eagerly awaited by states for congressional redistricting.
Critics immediately assailed Tuesday's move as one that could cause millions of Americans, mostly minorities, to be missed in the count.
Commerce Secretary Don Evans said he endorsed a Census Bureau conclusion that the initial raw count offered the most accurate snapshot of the population. Those numbers will begin to be sent to states this week for lawmakers to use in redrawing political boundary lines.
In making the decision, Evans turned aside pleas by Democrats and civil rights groups to use a second, statistically adjusted population tally that they said would compensate for an estimated 3.3 million uncounted Americans.
"I weighed their recommendation, evaluated their report ... and I concluded that the recommendation of the Census Bureau professionals was correct and prudent," Evans told a news conference. "We will send unadjusted data" for redistricting.
The first numbers, for New Jersey and Virginia, will be sent today to the states' governors and legislative leaders, bureau spokeswoman Laverne Collins said. But they will not be released to the public until the state officials acknowledge receiving them.
Evans' decision quieted, for now, a long political debate between congressional Democrats and Republicans over whether, and how, to account for those missed in the actual national head count.
Estimates from a survey after the 2000 census found a net undercount of 1.2 percent of the country's 281 million people on April 1, 2000, or about 3.3 million Americans. That was down from 1.6 percent in 1990, or about 4 million of the country's population then of 248 million.
Democrats and civil rights groups said an adjustment using statistical sampling would protect against traditional undercounts of minorities and children that continued in the 2000 count.
This was the first census that Americans were allowed to identify themselves as being of more than one race on the form. A Census Bureau committee report estimated 36.4 million people identified themselves in 2000 as "black" or "partially black." But, using adjustment methods, the bureau also estimated there could have been a 2.1 percent undercount in the category, raising the total to 37.2 million.
Republicans countered that the Constitution does not allow for anything other than an "actual enumeration" for redistricting.
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