Tellers in Seoul, South Korea, count ballots from the May 2017 presidential election. (Jean Chung/Getty Images)

If early on voting trends are any indication, a record number of Americans could vote in the 2020 presidential election. As of this writing, more than 100 million early votes have been cast by mail or in person – more than than 2-thirds of the total number of votes cast in 2016.

We won't have anything like a definitive assessment of 2020 turnout rates for some time afterward Nov. 3. But in the 2016 presidential election, nigh 56% of the U.S. voting-historic period population cast a ballot. That represented a slight uptick from 2012 but was lower than in the tape year of 2008, when turnout topped 58% of the voting-historic period population.

So how does voter turnout in the United States compare with turnout in other countries? That depends very much on which country you're looking at and which measuring stick y'all use.

Political scientists often define turnout every bit votes bandage divided by the number of eligible voters. Only because eligible-voter estimates are not readily bachelor for many countries, nosotros're basing our cross-national turnout comparisons on estimates of voting-historic period population (or VAP), which are more readily available, as well equally on registered voters. (Read "How nosotros did this" for details.)

Comparing U.S. national election turnout rates with rates in other countries tin can yield unlike results, depending on how turnout is calculated. Political scientists oft define turnout every bit votes cast 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, because they're readily bachelor for most countries.

Nosotros calculated turnout rates for the most recent national election in each country, except in cases where that election was for a largely ceremonial position or for European Parliament members (turnout is often essentially lower in such elections). Voting-age population turnout is derived from estimates of each land's VAP by the International Establish for Commonwealth and Electoral Assistance. Registered-voter turnout is derived from each country'south reported registration data. Because of methodological differences, in some countries Idea's VAP estimates are lower than the reported number of registered voters.

In add-on to information from Idea, data is also drawn from the U.Due south. Census Bureau, the Office of the Clerk of the U.South. House of Representatives, and private nations' statistical and election regime.

Overall, 245.v million Americans were ages xviii and older in Nov 2016, near 157.6 million of whom reported being registered to vote, co-ordinate to Demography Bureau estimates. Just over 137.v million people told the census they voted that year, somewhat higher than the actual number of votes tallied – most 136.8 million, co-ordinate to figures compiled past the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. Firm of Representatives (which include more than 170,000 bare, spoiled or otherwise zip ballots). That sort of overstatement has long been noted by researchers; the comparisons and charts in this assay use the House Clerk's effigy, forth with data from the International Found for Democracy and Electoral Assist and private nations' statistical and elections government.

The 55.seven% VAP turnout in 2016 puts the U.Southward. behind about of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Evolution, virtually of whose members are highly developed democratic states. Looking at the almost recent nationwide election in each OECD nation, the U.S. places 30th out of 35 nations for which data is bachelor.

Past international standards, 2016 U.S. voter turnout was low

Country % of voting historic period population % of registered voters
Iceland (2017) NA 81.20%
Japan (2017) NA 53.65%
Turkey (2018)* 88.97% 86.24%
Sweden (2018) 82.08% 87.18%
Commonwealth of australia (2019)* eighty.79% 91.89%
Belgium (2019)* 77.94% 88.38%
Republic of korea (2017) 77.92% 77.23%
Israel (2020) 77.90% 71.52%
Netherlands (2017) 77.31% 81.93%
Kingdom of denmark (2019) 76.38% 84.60%
Hungary (2018) 71.65% 69.68%
Norway (2017) 70.59% 78.22%
Republic of finland (2019) 69.43% 68.73%
Germany (2017) 69.11% 76.15%
France (2017) 67.93% 74.56%
Mexico (2018)* 65.98% 63.43%
Poland (2020) 65.40% 68.18%
Slovakia (2020) 65.39% 65.81%
Italy (2018) 65.28% 73.05%
Austria (2019) 64.40% 75.59%
Greece (2019)* 63.53% 57.78%
New Zealand (2020) 63.16% 68.35%
Canada (2019) 62.42% 67.04%
United Kingdom (2019) 62.32% 67.86%
Portugal (2019) 61.13% 48.60%
Spain (2019) 60.29% 66.23%
Lithuania (2019) 59.28% 53.88%
Czechia (2017) 58.02% 60.79%
Colombia (2018) 57.28% 53.38%
Ireland (2020) 56.65% 62.71%
Republic of estonia (2019) 56.45% 63.67%
United States (2016) 55.72% 86.80%
Slovenia (2018) 54.58% 52.64%
Latvia (2018) 53.55% 54.56%
Chile (2017) 52.20% 49.02%
Luxembourg (2018)* 48.16% 89.66%
Switzerland (2019)* 36.06% 45.12%

Pew Research Heart

The highest turnout rates amid OECD nations were in Turkey (89% of voting-age population), Sweden (82.1%), Australia (80.viii%), Belgium (77.ix%) 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 Belgium may be that they are among the 21 nations around the world, including half-dozen in the OECD, with some form of compulsory voting. Ane canton in Switzerland has compulsory voting as well.

While compulsory-voting laws aren't always strictly enforced, their presence or absenteeism can take 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 notwithstanding in place. (Turnout rebounded slightly in the 2017 presidential election, to 49% of registered voters.)

Republic of chile's situation points to yet another complicating factor when comparing turnout rates across countries: the distinction betwixt who's eligible to vote and who's actually registered to do and so. In many countries, the national regime takes the lead in getting people's names on the rolls – whether past registering them automatically once they go eligible (as in, for example, Sweden or Germany) or by aggressively seeking out and registering eligible voters (as in the UK and Australia). As a consequence, turnout looks pretty similar regardless of whether yous're looking at voting-age population or registered voters.

In the U.Southward., past contrast, registration is decentralized and mainly an individual responsibility. And registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than in many other countries. But about 64% of the U.S. voting-historic period population (and 70% of voting-historic period citizens) was registered in 2016, according to the Census Bureau. The U.South. rate is much lower than many other OECD countries: For example, the share of the voting-historic period 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 also has a low rate (54%), although it represents something of a special case because nearly half of the tiny country's population is foreign born.

Turnout in U.S. presidential elections

As a effect, turnout comparisons based but on registered voters may not be very meaningful. For instance, U.S. turnout in 2016 was 86.8% of registered voters, 5th-highest among OECD countries and 2d-highest among those without compulsory voting. But registered voters in the U.S. are much more than of a cocky-selected group, already more likely to vote because they took the trouble to register themselves.

At that place are even more than ways to calculate turnout. Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who runs the United States Election Projection, estimates turnout every bit a share of the "voting-eligible population" by subtracting noncitizens and ineligible felons from the voting-historic period population and adding eligible overseas voters. Using those calculations, U.S. turnout improves somewhat, to threescore.1% of the 2016 voting-eligible population. Notwithstanding, McDonald doesn't calculate comparable estimates for other countries.

No matter how they're measured, U.S. turnout rates have been fairly consequent over the past several decades, despite some election-to-election variation. Since 1976, voting-age turnout has remained within an viii.v percentage bespeak range – from just under 50% in 1996, when Bill Clinton was reelected, to just over 58% in 2008, when Barack Obama won the White House. However, turnout varies considerably among different racial, ethnic and age groups.

In several other OECD countries, turnout has drifted lower in recent decades. Greece has a compulsory-voting law on the books, though it's not enforced; turnout in that location in parliamentary elections roughshod from 89% in 2000 to 63.v% last twelvemonth. In Kingdom of norway's virtually recent parliamentary elections, 2017, 70.6% 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 country's independence from Yugoslavia in 1992, when 85% of the voting-historic period population bandage ballots – but turnout has fallen nearly 31 percentage points in two-and-a-half decades of democracy, sinking to 54.6% in 2018.

On the other manus, turnout in contempo elections has bumped upward in several OECD countries. Canadian turnout in the two most contempo parliamentary elections (2015 and 2019) topped 62%, the highest rate since 1993. In Slovakia's legislative elections this by February, nearly two-thirds (65.4%) of the voting-age population cast ballots, upward from 59.4% in 2016. And in Hungary'due south 2018 parliamentary elections, almost 72% of the voting-age population voted, up from 63.3% in 2014.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 6, 2015.