Low turnout is an acceptable response to an inefficient system where majoritarianism, gerrymandered districts, ballot access laws, etc. culminate in a meticulous engineering of the odds being stacked against the voters.

Though, for some reason, voting and "democracy" elicit such warm conditioned feelings that people are willing to desperately scrape for examples of whatever small local victories they've secured in order to justify that it's worth going through the whole jungle. Electoral reform, though? Dead end.

In my mind the issue is not absolute turnout but representative turnout. If only 1% of people voted but they were a good representation of the varied interests of the population, that would be just fine.

The problem today is that certain groups (poor, young, ethnic minorities) are less likely to vote and thus have less of a voice as a group. There are systematic changes that could be made to encourage more representative voting, such as easier voter registration practices and a national voting holiday. Australia even imposes a small fine for not voting, which surely would not sit well with many in America but would probably be a good thing for our republic.

These things are not so separate as you portray, voter turnout can increase when people learn the people governing them are total dipshits and bullies. There are a lot of motivating reasons, and people are different.