Do contested races result in higher turnout?

There is a good deal of speculation about what causes voters to turnout at the polls more or less. Rather than guess, we should try to get facts to support or reject hypotheses.

Today we'll look at one hypothesis: That contested races bring out greater voter turnout, and we'll look at the Democratic turnout in the Legislative and Councilmanic races in Montgomery County in the 2014 primary election.

There are 8 Legislative districts in MoCo, and my observation is that there were seriously contested races for State Senator or State Delegates in 5 of them, a contested race in 1, and no contest in 2. Here's a chart showing the turnout in these races:

District
16	serious contest	29%
17	serious contest	21%
18	serious contest	28%
19	serious contest	26%
20	serious contest	27%
15	contest	21%
14	no contest	22%
39	no contest	15%

 

It seems that there is some evidence of a greater turnout in contested faces, except for District 17 that had a very serious contest but one of the smaller turnouts.

Next we'll look at the turnout in the MoCo Council districts, where there were serious contests in 3 districts, a contest in 1, and no contest in 1:

District
1	serious contest	29%
3	serious contest	24%
5	serious contest	26%
2	contest	17%
4	no contest	22%

Again, it seems there is some correlation between contested races and turnout, except that District 2 which has some contest (apparently not too serious) had a lower turnout than District 4 which had no contest at all.

These charts do not take account of all factors, of course, but they may be useful in evaluating what draws people to the polls.