I. Turnout over time: Advances and retreats in electoral participation
| Figure 1 - TURNOUT OVER TIME |
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| Key: VAP = voting age population |
Overall participation in competitive elections across the globe rose steadily between 1945 and 1990. Between 1945-1950 the number of voters turning out to vote at each election represented 61% of the voting age population (i.e. all citizens old enough to vote). That turnout figure rose to 62% in the 1950s, 65% in the 1960s, 67% in the 1970s, and 68% in the 1980s. But in the 1990s, with the influx of a host of competitive elections in newly democratising states, the average for elections held since 1990 has dipped back to 64%. Interestingly the same turnout figures expressed as a percentage of the number of people registered to vote remained more constant throughout the 1940s to 1980s but then dipped more suddenly in the 1990s. In other words, while the participation rate of all eligible voters has dropped only marginally, the drop in the participation rate of those actually registered to vote has been more pronounced.
Click the graphical links below to view the ranking of average turnout in the 1990s
| Average Turnout in the 1990s |
- Africa
- Asia
- CIC, Central & Eastern Europe
- Middle East
- North America & The Caribbean
- Oceania
- South & Central America
- Western Europe
- All Countries
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The league table of average voter turnout in the 1990s across the world dramatically refutes the notion that high voter turnout is the province of the Western world. Malta and Uruguay gain pride of place as the countries with the world's highest turnout, with over 96% of their eligible population voting. Cambodia comes third followed by Indonesia. Figure 2 shows just how varied and geographically widespread high turnout rates are. Six of the top twenty countries are from Western Europe, six are from Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), while African, South and Central American, and Asian countries also figure prominently on the list. In terms of regional distribution, it is particularly striking that the top ten countries on our list come from both open democracies and authoritarian regimes, from a range of different regions of the world, and that they range from some of the smallest countries in the world to some of the biggest. Tiny island states like Malta and Iceland (both at the extremities of Western Europe) and the Seychelles (Africa), and medium-sized nation states, such as South Africa and Italy, are joined by Indonesia, the world's fourth largest country. Just as high rates of voter participation are not restricted to the developed world, neither are they an unambiguous feature of democracy. Within regions, it is the Tunisia (Africa), Bahamas (North America and the Caribbean), Nauru (Oceania), Singapore (Asia), Uzbekistan (Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS), Malta (Western Europe), and Uruguay (South and Central America) that are the respective regional leaders in electoral participation. In the Middle East, Israel's 1990s average of 78.5% leads the table due to Kuwait's somewhat "false" rate of turnout, since it is based on the exclusion of women from the franchise. Mali (Africa), Haiti (North America and the Caribbean), Tonga (Oceania), Pakistan (Asia), Poland (Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS), Switzerland (Western Europe), Guatemala (South and Central America), and Lebanon (the Middle East) prop up the bottoms of their respective league tables. Regional variations are most pronounced in Africa, which has some of the world's highest and lowest turnout rates overall, and are least marked in North America and the Caribbean, which nonetheless tends to have lower overall turnout rates than most other regions.
