Elections & terms
voter turnout
The share of eligible people who voted. Which denominator is used, registered voters or the voting-eligible population, changes the number substantially.
In full
Turnout in presidential years runs far above midterms, and local elections lower still, which means off-cycle contests are decided by a small and unrepresentative slice of the electorate. Comparisons across countries or years are only meaningful when the denominator is stated, since registered-voter turnout always looks higher than eligible-population turnout.
Where to go next
Keep going
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.