For Immediate Release
April 13, 2005
Study Finds Door-to-Door Campaigning Increases Latino Voter Turnout
A study conducted by the UT Brownsville/Texas Southmost College Center for Civic Engagement found that going door-to-door to get out the vote works. Personally encouraging voters to exercise their civic right increased the Latino election turnout by 10.4 percent in the 2004 general election last November.
‘These results suggest that local civic-minded groups could take action that would make a big difference in voter turnout,” said Dr. Gregg R. Murray, UTB/TSC Assistant Professor and one of the study directors. “And, if we turned out at higher rates across the Rio Grande Valley, it could give us a louder voice statewide.”
During the study, get-out-the-vote messages, with civic duty or Latino group solidarity themes, were delivered to registered voters in Brownsville the three weekends prior to the 2004 General Election via door-to-door canvassing and direct mail. The objective was to assess their effects on voter turnout. Approximately 1,900 messages were delivered by canvassing and 4,000 messages were delivered by direct mail. The canvassing was carried out by almost 150 student and community volunteers who completed about 550 hours of canvassing in the community.
Murray and his coauthor, University of Houston Professor Dr. Richard E. Matland, then looked at post-election voting rolls to determine who in the treatment and control groups did and did not vote. While door-to-door campaigning was shown to increase voter turn out by more than 10 percent, direct mail was also shown to have an effect. Voter turnout increased slightly more than two percent among direct mail recipients, even though the direct mail effort included only a single, relatively inexpensive mailer.
“In all, the results are fairly clear,” Murray said. “Door-to-door canvassing has the potential to raise turnout by a significant amount within the Latino community. Furthermore, it appears that mailers have a modest, but noticeable, effect that is stronger in the Latino community than previous studies have found in the Anglo community.”
The study also found canvassing was more effective among those over 30 years old than those under 30, the effect being nearly twice as large for the older voters than younger voters.
The UTB/TSC Center for Civic Engagement sponsored the study as part of their Scholarship of Community initiative. The program is designed to encourage faculty in academically relevant work that fulfills the university’s service and research mission, while meeting the community’s needs.
For more information, contact Dr. Murray at 544-8896 or gmurray@utb.edu.