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Jury Aversion and Voter Registration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

J. Eric Oliver  and
Raymond E. Wolfinger
J. Eric Oliver
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Raymond E. Wolfinger
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

Election officials often say that many Americans do not register to vote for fear of being called to jury duty. The only published study on the topic claims that aversion to jury service depresses turnout by more than seven percentage points. We use questions from the 1991 National Election Studies Pilot Study to ascertain beliefs about the sources of jury lists, and we relate those impressions to registration status. We find that barely half the public professes any knowledge of how juries are chosen, and just 42% believe that they come from voter registration records. Estimations from a multivariate analysis indicate that fear of jury service accounts for less than a one percentage point drop in turnout. We discuss the implications of this finding both for reform proposals and the rational choice theory of turnout.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 93 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 147 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1999

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