Elections & terms
electorate
Everyone eligible to vote in a given election. Not the same as the people who register, and not the same as the people who actually turn out.
In full
Three different populations get called the electorate, and mixing them up distorts every percentage built on them: the voting-eligible population, registered voters, and actual voters. Turnout figures mean different things depending on which is the denominator. A constituency is the electorate of one particular office.
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Browse every term in the glossary, or see the vocabulary in motion in the How government works walkthroughs.
A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.