voter turnout

Voters lining up outside a Baghdad polling station during the 2005 Iraqi election. Voter turnout was considered high despite widespread concerns of violence. Voter turnout in Western countries elections (in %, starting 1900/1945; more details by clicking and seeing Wiki Commons description for the image). In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote."

Institutional factors drive the vast majority of differences in turnout rates. For example, simpler parliamentary democracies where voters get shorter ballots, fewer elections, and a multi-party system that makes accountability easier see much higher turnout than the systems of the United States, Japan, and Switzerland.