Face-to-face canvassing of low-income and minority communities dramatically increases voter turnout within these historically low voter participation populations, according to a new study released by the James Irvine Foundation. Researchers, including UC Irvine professor Lisa Garcia Bedolla (pictured), found other personal contact outreach methods – including live phone calls – to be much more effective at turning out the vote than direct mail, recorded phone messages and other commonly used voter mobilization tactics. The James Irvine Foundation launched the California Voter Initiative in 2006 as a multi-year effort to increase voter participation in targeted areas and evaluate nonpartisan strategies for increasing voting rates.