This study assesses the levels of diversity in the jury source lists in the State of Georgia utilizing voter registration data as of February 1997, and the effects of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) on diversity levels. The data indicates that, while the NVRA has increased registration rates, the rates for blacks has been only slightly higher than that of whites. Thus, the problems of diversity have not been significantly effected by the NVRA.This paper discusses the issue of cognizable class, and reiterates arguments supporting the recognition of young persons and non-voters as cognizable. Also assessed are the methods of measuring source list disparity, with attention given to problems associated with the absolute disparity test, and argues for the use of the Chi-Square "Goodness of Fit" test to measure source list disparity.Current levels of disparity are calculated using both absolute disparity and ChiSquare. These are found in the appendix. Analysis is done by assessing the percentage of source lists (for which there is data) that should be presumed invalid using the five percent criterion for absolute disparity and the fifty percent criterion for Chi-Square.Analysis using both absolute disparity and Chi-Square indicates that many source lists in the State of Georgia are not representative of the population. While absolute disparity invalidates only few source lists, the Chi-Square statistic indicates that the problem is much more widespread.Both absolute disparity and Chi-Square results indicate that age is the most important variable with regard to under-representation. Young persons (18-29) are found to be under-represented more often than any other group regardless of race and/or sex. This is particularly evident when looking at the Chi-square results. While blacks are generally found to be under-represented more often when compared to similar sex and age aggregates for whites, the levels of under-representation of race and sex aggregates remain closely related to age. / Department of Political Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/186085 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Rackley, David R. |
| Contributors | Baker, Ralph E. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | ii, 63, ca. 100 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-ga |
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