AUSTIN - The saying goes that everything is bigger in Texas. But that's not the case when it comes to voter turnout or to civic participation in general.

A recent study by the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin revealed that in 2010, the Lone Star State ranked last in the nation in voter turnout.

Additionally, the state ranked 42nd in voter registration, 49th in the number of citizens who contact public officials and 44th in the number of people who discuss politics a few times a week or more. The study relied heavily on data from the 2011 Census Bureau Current Population Survey on Voting.

"This report should be a wake-up call for all Texans who care about the future of our state," Institute Director Regina Lawrence said in a statement.

"By not being civically engaged, too many Texans are ceding control over the direction of our state to an active few," said Lawrence, also a journalism professor at the university.

As early voting for the Nov. 5 election begins today, the potential for lower-than-usual voter turnout worries state officials that Proposition 6, which would authorize the Texas Legislature to withdraw $2 billion from the rainy day fund to kick start water projects, could be in jeopardy.

"It is important that we not overlook voter apathy," Texas House Speaker Joe Straus recently told the San Antonio Express-News. "That's really the only enemy that this proposition faces."

Straus' fear of a low turnout is based on the state's voting history.

Amendments to the Texas Constitution, which the Legislature sends to state voters for their approval every two years after a legislative session ends, usually draw the lowest number of voters.

In the 2011 election, for example, when voters approved seven of 10 constitutional amendments on the ballot, the statewide turnout was 5.37 percent, according to the office of the Texas Secretary of State, which oversees the state's elections. In the 2009 election, turnout was slightly higher - 8.18 percent - but still significantly lower than in presidential or gubernatorial elections.

Even in presidential elections every four years, which usually attract the highest percentage of voters across the nation, Texas has one of the lowest turnouts.

In last year's election, for example, only 49 percent of the state's registered voters went to the polls, according to an analysis of data by the non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate. Only Hawaii, West Virginia and Oklahoma had lower turnouts.

In Minnesota, which traditionally has the highest turnout in the nation, 75 percent of voters went to the polls. Neighboring Wisconsin had the second highest turnout at 71.7 percent.

Studies by other organizations suggest that turnout is usually higher in swing states where the vote for candidates, regardless of political party, can go one way or another. Texas, on the other hand, is a red state and before Republicans gained complete control of the state government more than a decade ago, Democrats controlled it for more than a century.

Former Republican Party of Texas chairman Tom Pauken said low turnout always is a concern, especially in odd-numbered years, when most state voters are asked to approve constitutional amendments but not to elect anyone.

"Part of it is that they are too complicated for most voters," said Pauken, who led the state GOP for three years in the 1990s when it was the minority party.

"We're all worried about the water issue," Pauken said, "but this is such a murky issue in terms of a lot of questions about it that I think people are confused by it."

Another reason for the low turnout is that people are just fed up with politics, said Pauken who is seeking his party's nomination for governor.

"They put all politicians on the same category and I am talking about conservative, liberal, Republican or Democrat," he said. "It is just that people got, with justification, very cynical" about the political process.