Canvassing provides last minute boost in voter turnout

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With close races on the line, voter turn out can make all the difference on Election Day. Proposition 30, Governor Brown's tax initiative, is so close it isn't expected to be called until late into the night. Recent polls show the initiative has just dropped below 50 percent, making all the more important that its proponents get voters to their polling stations. Sequoia Crandall has been volunteering as a canvasser with Good Jobs LA, a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood involvement in recreating “the American Dream for working families.” Crandall woke up at 6 am Tuesday morning to hit the streets in Lynwood, south of downtown Los Angeles to gather support for Prop 30 and to encourage a NO-vote on Prop 32. Prop 32, known as the special interests initiative, would ban businesses and unions from using payroll deductions to donate to political campaigns. While it might seem like canvassing is analogous to scraping the bottom of the bucket, studies show it can have a significant impact on voter turnout. In 1999, researchers at the California Institute of Technology found that canvassing increases overall turnout by six percent. Additionally, among people who were actually contacted by volunteers, rather than left with flyers or door hangers, participation jumped by nearly 12 percent. Crandall said she was successful at about one-in-five houses she knocked on in a precinct in the southeast corner of Lynwood. At each door she encouraged voters to support Prop 30 because of what it would mean to students. “A lot of people were excited when they heard it’s for the kids,” she said. “It will support teachers, firefighters, nurses.” She also helped people to find their polling places, said she could arrange transportation for them and set an exact time that they planned on voting. “People are a lot more likely to vote if you kind of schedule it out for them,” Crandall discovered. Crandall, who is heading a team of five volunteers, plans on hitting four or five different precincts before polls close. After two and a half months volunteering, seeing voters lined up was welcomed relief. “You know, you take the effort to knock on doors and then you see all these voters coming out to vote and you know they're voting yes on 30, no on 32 it gives you a good feeling like we're not out here for nothing,” Crandall said.