The single greatest thing a state can do to increase voter participation is to provide hotly contested races. Usually, that translates into having a balance between Democrats and Republicans. No, I have not studied (very much) states dominated by one party, and compared their voter participation to states with divided party loyalties, other than to note some of the things that happened in this election and other than to note Utah has long been dominated by one party, and has for some time had a low voter turnout.
Voters want choices. Otherwise, why vote? It isn't really an election if the ballot offers no choice.
Texas is said to have the lowest voter turnout in all the land, but this year it was even lower (37.5% turnout in 2010 to 33.6% in 2014). Did the new voter I.D. law have an effect? Perhaps. But the biggest factor in the low turnout was probably lack of enough barnburner races. Senator John Cornyn crushed his Democratic challenger, David Alameel, by 27.2 percentage points. Greg Abbott sailed past his Democratic opponent, Wendy Davis, by more than 20 percentage points.
As for nationwide trends, Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, cited in a Los Angeles Times article, noted that where there were competitive races, "we actually had a fairly robust turnout."
The writer of the article, Maeve Reston, wrote: "The turnout picture in Tuesday's election was complex. Ballots were still being counted Wednesday and the final numbers will not be certified for some time, but the preliminary figures showed an uneven picture across the country. There was a huge variance among the states based on whether they had hotly contested statewide races."
So, you want voter turnout? Design it so there's competition.
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