Global Dataset on Turnout

If you use the Global Dataset on Turnout (GD-Turnout), please cite the following article: Martinez i Coma, F and Leiva, D (2023) The Global Dataset on Turnout. Electoral Studies 86: 1-6. (Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379423001038)

The data collection for the first Module of the GD-Turnout was carried on between May 2020 and June 2021, with specific updates in 2022 and 2023. The GD-Turnout provides detailed information turnout on all presidential and parliamentary (lower house) elections from 1945-2020. We follow three inclusion criteria: First, our dataset includes states regardless of their size. Territories that are not states are excluded (with the exemption of Taiwan, please refer to the article or the codebook for an explanation of this decision). Second, we have aimed to include all presidential and parliamentary (lower house) elections since 1945 where data is available, regardless of how competitiveness is understood. Third, our understanding of franchise is based on what is ‘legally recognized’ in each country.

The GD-Turnout provides detailed information for 3217 elections between 1945 and 2020, which includes 935 presidential and 2282 parliamentary (lower house) elections in 190 countries. We have gathered all the registered voter turnout information for all the rounds where available.

The GD-Turnout includes official and non-official sources and provides the link of each incorporated election (see Codebook for details on methodology and sources). We relied on the relevant volumes of Dieter Nohlen et al.’s comprehensive Election Data Handbooks for Africa (1999), Asia and the Pacific (2001 and 2002), the Americas (2005), and Europe (2010) for all data and sources of the elections covered in them. For elections outside of the timeframe covered by Nohlen and colleagues, we provide source and link of all included elections, official and non-official. We have included a variable (called ‘source’) in the dataset indicating the type of source included on each election.