Voter Registration Lists: Do They Yield a Jury Representative of the Community

The passage of the Federal Act was primarily a response to the inability of the prevailing jury selection process to achieve the goal of a representative jury. The Act requires that voter registration lists be used as the primary source of names for jury selection in federal courts. A similar provision applicable to state courts is included in the Uniform Jury Selection and Service Act, adopted by the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1970.6 This article will examine the rationale and effectiveness of the use of voter registration lists as a means of achieving the goal of a representative jury, the problems in the implementation of the Federal and Uniform Acts, and a possible alternative to the use of the voter registration lists as the primary source of names for jury selection.