SVREP Phone Banks Rated Best by Dr. Donald Green James Irvine Foundation Sponsored Voter Turnout Effectiveness Study

For Immediate Release
Contact Lydia Camarillo 210-922-0225

(November 16, 2007) Los Angeles, California. The James Irvine Foundation released its findings on the voter turnout rates attained by those organizations issued grants in 2006 by the Foundation. Yale University Professor Dr. Donald Green led the evaluation team. Dr. Green is the nation's leading academic authority on the field of voter mobilization.

The Irvine Foundation commissioned evaluators examined the turnout performance of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP) Los Angeles area phone banking campaigns conducted during the November 2006 general elections. Dr. Green, author of the book Get Out The Vote, concluded that the effectiveness of the phone banks conducted by SVREP increased the turnout of voters by 9.1%.

"SVREP's contacts with voters increased turnout by 9.1 percentage-points. This means that SVREP's phone banking effort was approximately three times as cost-effective as the typical volunteer phone-bank. SVREP's 2006 voter mobilization campaign rates as the most effective large-scale phone-banking effort that has been documented in ten years of experimental GOTV research," stated Dr. Green at the press conference held on Thursday, November 15, 2007, by the James Irvine Foundation.

"SVREP has a long history of working to turnout voters that are traditionally not contacted by other campaigns. Our target is recently registered, Latino voters. We follow a repetitive, direct contact methodology. Given our often limited resources our highly specialized phone banking process is quite effective in mobilizing the greatest number of new voters possible," stated Antonio González, SVREP President.

"The fact that the voters SVREP contacted turned-out at a rate of 9.1% higher than voters of similar profiles not contacted by SVREP, means quite simply that SVREP's methodology produces a statistically significant impact on elections-an impact that can change the outcome of an election. In other words, voters that would normally have participated at a rate of 50%, for example, turned out at an average rate of 59.1% through SVREP efforts," stated Lydia Camarillo, SVREP Vice-President.