How Many Registered Us Voters
If early voting trends are whatever indication, a record number of Americans could vote in the 2020 presidential election. As of this writing, more than 100 million early on votes take been cast by postal service or in person – more than two-thirds of the total number of votes cast in 2016.
We won't have anything like a definitive cess of 2020 turnout rates for some time after Nov. iii. Simply in the 2016 presidential election, nearly 56% of the U.S. voting-age population cast a ballot. That represented a slight uptick from 2012 simply was lower than in the record twelvemonth of 2008, when turnout topped 58% of the voting-age population.
So how does voter turnout in the The states compare with turnout in other countries? That depends very much on which country you're looking at and which measuring stick you utilize.
Political scientists often define turnout as votes bandage divided by the number of eligible voters. But because eligible-voter estimates are not readily available for many countries, nosotros're basing our cross-national turnout comparisons on estimates of voting-age population (or VAP), which are more than readily bachelor, too as on registered voters. (Read "How we did this" for details.)
Comparing U.Southward. national election turnout rates with rates in other countries can yield different results, depending on how turnout is calculated. Political scientists often ascertain turnout as votes bandage divided by the estimated number of eligible voters. But eligible-voter estimates are difficult or impossible to find for many nations. So to compare turnout calculations internationally, we're using two different denominators: full registered voters and estimated voting-age populations, or VAP, considering they're readily available for most countries.
Nosotros calculated turnout rates for the almost contempo national ballot in each country, except in cases where that election was for a largely formalism position or for European Parliament members (turnout is often substantially lower in such elections). Voting-age population turnout is derived from estimates of each state's VAP by the International Plant for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Registered-voter turnout is derived from each country's reported registration data. Because of methodological differences, in some countries Idea'southward VAP estimates are lower than the reported number of registered voters.
In addition to information from IDEA, data is also drawn from the U.Southward. Census Bureau, the Function of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, and individual nations' statistical and ballot authorities.
Overall, 245.five meg Americans were ages 18 and older in November 2016, most 157.half dozen million of whom reported being registered to vote, according to Census Bureau estimates. Just over 137.five million people told the census they voted that year, somewhat higher than the actual number of votes tallied – nigh 136.8 million, co-ordinate to figures compiled by the Role of the Clerk of the U.South. House of Representatives (which include more than 170,000 blank, spoiled or otherwise cipher ballots). That sort of overstatement has long been noted past researchers; the comparisons and charts in this assay utilise the House Clerk's figure, along with information from the International Institute for Democracy and Balloter Help and individual nations' statistical and elections authorities.
The 55.vii% VAP turnout in 2016 puts the U.S. backside most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, almost of whose members are highly developed democratic states. Looking at the almost contempo nationwide election in each OECD nation, the U.Southward. places 30th out of 35 nations for which data is available.
The highest turnout rates among OECD nations were in Turkey (89% of voting-age population), Sweden (82.1%), Australia (fourscore.viii%), Kingdom of belgium (77.9%) and South Korea (77.9%). Switzerland consistently has the lowest turnout in the OECD: In 2019 federal elections, barely 36% of the Swiss voting-age population voted.
One factor behind the consistently high turnout rates in Australia and Kingdom of belgium may exist that they are among the 21 nations around the world, including six in the OECD, with some form of compulsory voting. 1 canton in Switzerland has compulsory voting likewise.
While compulsory-voting laws aren't always strictly enforced, their presence or absence can have dramatic effects on turnout. In Chile, for example, turnout plunged after the country moved from compulsory to voluntary voting in 2012 and began automatically putting all eligible citizens on the voter rolls. Even though substantially all voting-age citizens were registered to vote in Republic of chile'southward 2013 elections, turnout in the presidential race plunged to 42%, versus 87% in 2010 when the compulsory-voting law was all the same in place. (Turnout rebounded slightly in the 2017 presidential election, to 49% of registered voters.)
Chile'due south state of affairs points to notwithstanding another complicating factor when comparing turnout rates across countries: the distinction between who's eligible to vote and who'due south actually registered to do then. In many countries, the national authorities takes the lead in getting people's names on the rolls – whether past registering them automatically once they get eligible (equally in, for example, Sweden or Germany) or by aggressively seeking out and registering eligible voters (as in the UK and Australia). As a effect, turnout looks pretty similar regardless of whether you're looking at voting-age population or registered voters.
In the U.S., by dissimilarity, registration is decentralized and mainly an individual responsibleness. And registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than in many other countries. But well-nigh 64% of the U.S. voting-age population (and seventy% of voting-age citizens) was registered in 2016, co-ordinate to the Census Bureau. The U.S. charge per unit is much lower than many other OECD countries: For case, the share of the voting-age population that is registered to vote is 92% in the UK (2019), 93% in Canada (2019), 94% in Sweden (2018) and 99% in Slovakia (2020). Luxembourg too has a low charge per unit (54%), although it represents something of a special example because nigh half of the tiny country's population is strange born.
As a event, turnout comparisons based only on registered voters may non be very meaningful. For instance, U.S. turnout in 2016 was 86.8% of registered voters, fifth-highest amid OECD countries and second-highest among those without compulsory voting. Simply registered voters in the U.S. are much more of a self-selected group, already more probable to vote because they took the trouble to annals themselves.
There are even more than ways to calculate turnout. Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who runs the United States Election Project, estimates turnout as a share of the "voting-eligible population" past subtracting noncitizens and ineligible felons from the voting-historic period population and adding eligible overseas voters. Using those calculations, U.Due south. turnout improves somewhat, to 60.1% of the 2016 voting-eligible population. However, McDonald doesn't calculate comparable estimates for other countries.
No matter how they're measured, U.South. turnout rates have been fairly consistent over the past several decades, despite some election-to-ballot variation. Since 1976, voting-age turnout has remained within an eight.5 percentage point range – from just nether l% in 1996, when Bill Clinton was reelected, to only over 58% in 2008, when Barack Obama won the White House. All the same, turnout varies considerably amongst different racial, ethnic and age groups.
In several other OECD countries, turnout has drifted lower in recent decades. Greece has a compulsory-voting police on the books, though information technology's not enforced; turnout there in parliamentary elections fell from 89% in 2000 to 63.5% last year. In Norway's nigh recent parliamentary elections, 2017, lxx.half-dozen% of the voting-age population cast ballots – the everyman turnout rate in at least four decades. And in Slovenia, a burst of enthusiasm followed the land's independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, when 85% of the voting-age population bandage ballots – but turnout has fallen nearly 31 percent points in ii-and-a-half decades of democracy, sinking to 54.6% in 2018.
On the other hand, turnout in recent elections has bumped upwards in several OECD countries. Canadian turnout in the two most recent parliamentary elections (2015 and 2019) topped 62%, the highest rate since 1993. In Slovakia'southward legislative elections this past February, nearly ii-thirds (65.4%) of the voting-age population cast ballots, upwardly from 59.four% in 2016. And in Hungary'south 2018 parliamentary elections, nearly 72% of the voting-age population voted, up from 63.iii% in 2014.
Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 6, 2015.
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/03/in-past-elections-u-s-trailed-most-developed-countries-in-voter-turnout/
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