In the second election with the pick-a-party system, voter turnout went up four points from the last non-presidential year primary election. Since 2004, turnout was down seven points.

There are probably many other factors impacting turnout than the primary system, but it seems that the only thing the system changed was how people talk about the primary, not whether they vote or not.

I’d be interested to see how many people turned in non-partisan ballots compared to partisan ballots the last two times around, and see how that compares to party ID in the state.