Voter Turnout Data

What is Voter Turnout Data?

Voter turnout data refers to the data that measures the level of civic participation in an electoral process believed to be gauging the health and people’s trust in the electoral process of a country. It is the percentage of the casted votes against registered eligible voters. The higher the voter turnout in an election the higher level of acceptability of the results by the voters as it shows they have high confidence in the process. Voter turnout data will provide the basis on which to do reforms that can help promote civic participation among the voters.

How is Voter Turnout Data collected?

Voter turnout data is calculated from aggregated counts of the casted votes in an election. This is then compared to the number of registered eligible voters, it is important to discern the difference between the registered voters and eligible voters. Eligible voters are registered voters who have been confirmed to have the right to take part in an election. In most countries, the electoral and census commission will call for mass voter registration in readiness for an election, it is during this time that the register is mopped up to come up with a clean register of voters including newly registered individuals and removing the names of those who have passed on from the register. It can be concluded therefore that, whichever the denominator one chooses to use in calculating percentage voter turnout is entirely dependent on their intended use.

What are the typical attributes of Voter Turnout Data?

The key attributes of voter turnout data are associated with the demographic factors that are associated with levels of voter turnout. As such, this data not only shows a cumulative value of voter participation in the demographic process but also shows the nitty-gritty details about the demographic distribution of the voting process. These attributes comprise the level of education of voters, the level of income of voters, age, marital status, gender, race, and ethnicity. By a simple overview of this data, a user can be able to assess how various demographic factors have influenced the voting process.

How is Voter Turnout Data commonly used?

As a means to measuring the democratic participation of citizens, voter turnout data is important as it reflects the outcomes of an election process by giving a picture of constituent satisfaction, political attitudes across the country, partisan distribution of voters, and other critical indicators of democratic effectiveness. Through voter turnout data, political scientists can gauge the whole turnout’s determinants or factors that influenced the electoral process. Based on the attributes of this data, it can be easier for interested parties to determine how factors such as attitudes about a country’s democracy, political landscape, and demographic attributes such as age and gender affect the rate of voter turnout for a given country.  

How can a user assess the quality of Voter Turnout Data?

Voter turnout data can be said to be of high quality if it is sourced from credible sources such as electoral and census bodies of a country. However, assessing the quality of voter turnout data goes as deeper as determining its accuracy because inaccurate data may paint a different picture of the situation on the ground. To determine the accuracy of this dataset, a user ought to understand how the data was collected, or what variables were used to collect the data. In most cases, the denominator that one chooses to calculate the voter turnout is usually assumed to be the voting age population (VAP). However, the data that only applied the VAP denominator and ignored other key components such as Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP), or Voting Eligible Population (VEP) may not be accurate.

Who are the best Voter Turnout Data providers?

Finding the right Voter Turnout Data provider for you really depends on your unique use case and data requirements, including budget and geographical coverage. Popular Voter Turnout Data providers that you might want to buy Voter Turnout Data from are L2 Political and TargetSmart.

How can I get Voter Turnout Data?

You can get Voter Turnout Data via a range of delivery methods - the right one for you depends on your use case. For example, historical Voter Turnout Data is usually available to download in bulk and delivered using an S3 bucket. On the other hand, if your use case is time-critical, you can buy real-time Voter Turnout Data APIs, feeds and streams to download the most up-to-date intelligence.