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3
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THE FORMAT OF THE ADDRESSES IN THE JURY SOURCE LIST DATABASES SHOULD BE STANDARDIZED BEFORE THE DATABASES ARE COMBINED. THE CORRECT COUNTY CODE SHOULD BE ASSIGNED TO THE LICENSING DATA.
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Address Accuracy
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The combination and sorting of the Department of Licensing (DOL) database and the Voter Registration databases is the basic function that occurs before any summons work. There is anecdotal evidence indicating that this combination is functioning, but that improvements can be made which will ultimately result in increased summons response. Counties indicate that their most pressing problem with the jury source list is the quality of the addresses provided, causing summonses to be undeliverable by the United States Postal Service (USPS). In addition, incorrect county codes are often included in the DOL data, causing address records to be sorted into the wrong county’s list. In addition, the process to determine and eliminate duplicates between the two lists could be improved.
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Coding Accuracy
Support System
(CASS)
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The USPS has created software called the Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS). CASS software does not clean the list for bad addresses but instead standardizes the format of each address into the accepted USPS format. According to industry sources, the software is extremely sophisticated and the processing accuracy rate is 98% in standardizing addresses. It is commonly accepted that if the software cannot make sense of an address, the chances of successful delivery via USPS are very low.
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Process
through CASS
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The Commission recommends that the statutes and procedures be changed to require that all addresses be processed by CASS system software as the first step of list creation. The output of the CASS software should be required to append two data items to the original record for each person. The first is the system corrected address and the second is an assigned county code. Appending the output of the CASS software does not reduce the amount of information available to the summoning body.
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Eliminating Duplicates
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Standardizing the addresses before combining the lists should provide an additional source of information for eliminating duplicates. The statutes and procedures used to determine duplicates should be modified to include an examination of the county code and address in addition to the current checks.
We recommend that the Office of the Administrator for the Courts request an increase in the source list budget allocation to cover the increase in cost.
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References:
RCW 2.36.054 (rules governing the creation of the jury source list).
GR 18, Appendix, (providing the methodology for merging the registered voters list and licensed drivers/identicard holders lists).
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