EW YORK - Vice President Al Gore criticized Texas Governor George W. Bush yesterday for not supporting a method of adjusting US Census figures that would lead to increased population counts for urban areas and minority groups.
The method, known as sampling, is a way of statistically changing actual headcounts to account for populations that have a low response level to census forms.
''I want to say to Governor Bush, if you really believe that every American counts, it's time to stand up to the operatives in your own party and support a census that counts every American,'' Gore said.
The US Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that raw census numbers must be used to reapportion congressional seats, but left open the possibility that sampling could be used for other purposes, such as the data used to decide the distribution of federal funds. As of Monday, a week after 115 million census forms were mailed out, Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt said about 7.3 million had been processed.
''In a nation of 250 million people, it's ridiculous to believe that the most accurate way to count everybody is by sending out people with clipboards and pencils,'' Gore told 150 staff members of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, a community service center on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Republicans have fought the use of sampling because it could lead to lower headcounts in predominantly Republican areas.
Bush spokesman Scott McLellan defended the use of an actual headcount devoid of sampling, saying: ''Given the Clinton-Gore administration's history of using nonpartisan government agencies to further the political agenda of Democrats, subjecting the census to the risk of partisan manipulation will do nothing to restore public confidence in the ethics of this administration. While Governor Bush believes we should count everyone ... Vice President Gore ignores the recent Supreme Court decision that there must be an actual headcount.''
But Gore said rejecting sampling ''has nothing to do with meeting the needs of people who are homeless or children who are in Head Start. ... It has to do with partisanship. It has to do with politics. It has to do with political power.''
The Census Bureau has said that the 1990 count, which did not use sampling, missed 8.4 million people and double-counted 4.4 million people.
A study done for the US Census Monitoring Board concluded earlier this month that if sampling is not applied to the 2000 figures used to decide federal funding, Bush's home state of Texas will lose $1.9 billion in federal aid, while New York City will lose $2.4 billion.
Census officials yesterday unveiled a section on their Web site (www.census.gov) that allows the public to find out mail response rates for every state, and most cities and towns, in the country.
