For the last several years market researchers were among the constituencies with a stake in the proposed new census methods. Demographers and other research professionals argued that statistical estimating techniques would yield more accurate figures than an actual count of the population.
Statistical estimates can be highly accurate.
Indeed, the election polls of likely electors and exit polls of electors possibly yielded more accurate numbers for the recent presidential election than will result from the official election count. Counting every single individual in the US is a daunting task. Estimating techniques are not used to measure the population. Estimating techniques are used to measure the error in the actual count. In 1990, for example, the census counted 9,295,297 people in Michigan.