OHIO Voter registration drives created larger juror pool

It makes it less likely that those who already have served as jurors will be selected again.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
There's a side benefit to having those 800,000 newly registered voters who were signed up for the Nov. 2 election. They're also potential new jurors.
In Ohio, jury duty is performed mostly by registered voters. Some counties, including Cuyahoga and Athens, have also begun drawing names of prospective jurors from lists of people who hold drivers' licenses.
Court officials say all those new voters could end up having as great an impact on the justice system as they do on the political system.
Court administrators and others who work with juries predict that the pool of potential jurors will become slightly younger and more diverse as the new voters are added to a list that now includes more than 7 million names.
"I would expect that we would end up with a jury pool that is more representative of the community," said Jean Atkin, president of the Ohio Jury Management Association and the court administrator in Lucas County.
At the very least, administrators say, the bigger pool will make it less likely that those who already have served as jurors will be selected again.
'Answer to a prayer'
"It's a jury commissioner's answer to a prayer," said Tom Shields, jury commissioner for Franklin County Municipal Court in Columbus.
"We should have less repeaters and a better demographic representation."
One concern is that the larger numbers could create administrative headaches if jury commissioners inherit some of the same problems elections officials faced earlier this year with verifying names and addresses.
Hamilton County's jury commissioner, Fritz Meyer, said it might take months or years before anyone can tell whether the big voter registration numbers translate into noticeable differences on juries.