1. Do you publish turnout statistics for local elections?
No, this website contains turnout statistics for elections that were held for national political office and EU parliamentary elections only. More information on local elections can be found at regional resources such as:
Political Database of the Americas: http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Sur/sur.html
2. Where can I find information on electoral systems?
Information about electoral systems and their consequences, comparative information as well as country case studies can be found in:
3. Do you have election statistics disaggregated by age, gender or race?
We do have some election statistics disaggregated by gender. However, this data is not provided in many countries. Please refer to this page for gender disaggregated turnout: Gender Voter Turnout. IDEA published a report on Youth Voter Participation in 1999, and more information is available here: Youth Voter Participation: Involving Today's Young in Tomorrow's Democracy
4. What affects turnout?
A number of factors affect how many people turn out to vote. These include institutional factors such as the type of electoral system used and whether voting is compulsory or not. Socio-economic factors such as the literacy rate, the wealth of a nation, its population size, and its "human development" level, and political factors such as the "competitiveness" of the election, have all been proposed as having a direct impact upon voter turnout. For more information, please see the Global Survey:
What is affecting Voter Turnout? 5. Are there countries in the world which do not practice universal suffrage?
Among the countries that we report in the database women do not have the right to vote in Kuwait. There are many countries in the world that do not have democratic elections and where suffrage rights are obviously limited.
There is a global history of franchise, containing information on the spread of universal suffrage, to be found at:
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm .
6. Which countries in the world practice compulsory voting?
A number of countries in the world practice compulsory voting according to their electoral laws. Please refer to this page for more information on compulsory voting:
Compulsory Voting
7. What is Voting Age Population (VAP) and how is the estimate calculated?
Voting Age Population (VAP) refers to the total number of potential voters of voting age in a given country. The VAP figure is a rough estimate and it does not take into account the fact that there might be people who are above voting age but still not enfranchised due to legal or systemic barriers. The estimate gives an approximate figure of the number of eligible people but it does not reflect the exact number. VAP might differ largely from the number of registered people since registration in many countries is voluntary or not accurate. In countries where registration is compulsory and automatic, and based on the civil register, for example the Scandinavian countries, the VAP figure and the number of registered voters are quite close.
8. Where can I find some country specific information on election administration and data on electoral practises?
The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network is the world’s largest repository of electoral knowledge. It is a comprehensive and systematic collection of information on every aspect relating to the organisation and implementation of elections.
Access the ACE network at www.aceproject.org.
9. Which is the minimum voting age?
The most common voting age in the world is 18 years. Twenty or twenty-one is also used in some countries. Iran has the lowest voting age in the world and allows 15 year olds to vote. The highest age is 21 and this is practised in several countries for example Tonga, Azerbaijan, Lebanon and Singapore.
For more information about voting age, please see ACE Electoral Knowledge Network: Comparative Data.
10. What is voting by mail and internet voting?
Voting by mail is the most common form of absentee voting. There has been much discussion on the use of Internet voting as a method for increasing voter turnout at elections. Read more about voting by mail, internet voting and other types of external voting in Voting from Abroad: The International IDEA Handbook.
11. In some countries, the VAP figure is smaller than the number of registered voters. How is this possible?
The fact that some countries display a larger number of registered voters than voting age population (VAP)might seem odd. In some cases this is the result of a typo or inaccurate information provided by the EMB, but it might also be caused by a number of issues relating to both the process of registration and the actual estimation of the figures.
The first thing that is important to remember is that the figures for voting age population are always based on estimates. As with all estimates, the numbers might be significantly different from the true values. Also, worthy of notice is that the data collected for VAP on the one hand, and the data for registered voters on the other, are acquired from different sources (mainly the Electoral Management Body in the case of the latter, and UN Demographic Yearbook for the former). These sources might in turn also use different estimates, resulting in discrepancies between the two measures.
Finally, the number of registered voters can be inaccurate if the voters list is flawed. There might be asymmetries present in the registration process; some voters could be registered twice or the authorities might have failed to remove certain people who are no longer eligible to vote (such as deceased voters or voters who have left the country). This might be because of short-comings in the way that registration of voters is organized (unclear delegation of responsibility between institutions, problems of communication etc.) or because of other factors that might over- or underestimate the actual number of registered voters. For more information about these issues, please see the ACE Encyclopaedia: Voter Registration.
