Was the 2014 loss due voter apathy on the side of progressives, or was there something else at play?

Courtesy of The Intercept:  

On Tuesday, older, white voters — who traditionally support Republicans — went to the polls in droves, while turnout among traditionally Democratic groups — the young, the minoritized, and women — was down. Indeed, overall turnout declined to an estimated 36.6% of eligible voters, the lowest rate of participation since the 1940s, despite the $3 billion spent by candidates, political parties, and super PACs. 

Yes, President Barack Obama’s poor performance and approval rating undoubtedly played a role in the lower turnout. But the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well.

The Intercept goes on to point out irregularities in both Texas and Georgia.  

Georgia, it must also be noted, is one of 27 states using the controversial software Crosscheck to weed out supposed voter fraud. Al Jazeera, which recently finished a months-long investigation of the program, found an astonishing 7 million Americans suspected of voter fraud on the Crosscheck lists. That despite the fact that voter fraud is almost unbelievably rare. One dogged investigator, a professor focused on election administration at Loyola University Law School, found just 31 credible incidents between 2000 and mid 2014, nationwide. 

Crosscheck scours the names of voters who live in the 27 states, and if a first and last name matches in two states both persons are flagged and purged. The surnames most likely to be flagged? “The lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities”, Al Jazeera reported. “List matching is an inaccurate science that burdens, disproportionately, minority voters”, said Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Weiser also claimed that voter complaints to her group’s hotline were higher this year than ever before.

I think most of us have known that our voting rights have been under attack since as least 2000, and  it seems that as time goes on the Republican's ability to rob us of our fundamental right to vote is getting more sophisticated and harder to track.

If we are going to have any hope of electing a representative government in this country we are going to have to do something very serious about reforming our voting structure.