Voter turnout in US elections is measured as a percentage, calculated by dividing the total number of votes cast by the voting age population (VAP), or more recently, the voting eligible population (VEP). Voter turnout has varied over time, between states, and between demographic groups. In the United States, turnout is higher for presidential elections than for midterm elections. US turnout is generally lower than that in other advanced democracies.
The historical trends in voter turnout in the United States presidential elections have been shaped by the gradual expansion of voting rights from the initial restriction to white male property owners aged 21 or older in the early years of the country's independence to all citizens aged 18 or older in the mid-20th century; policies that have made it easier or harder for eligible people to register and vote; the competitiveness of elections; and the mobilization efforts of parties, candidates and other organizations. The composition of voter turnout has also changed with increased use of early voting and mail voting. Approximately 209 million people were registered to vote in the 2020 presidential election and 158,427,986 ballots were submitted for president (75.8% of registered voters).
Measuring turnout For many years, voter turnout was reported as a percentage; the numerator being the total votes cast, or the votes cast for the highest office, and the denominator being the Voting Age Population (VAP), the Census Bureau's estimate of the number of persons 18 years old and older resident in the United States. The VAP, however, includes people who are not actually eligible to vote, either because they are not US citizens, or because a prior felony conviction bars them from voting under the laws in their state.
In their 2001 American Political Science Review article, Michael P. McDonald and Samuel Popkin developed a measure they called the Voting Eligible Population (VEP). The VEP uses "government statistical series to adjust for ineligible but included groups, such as noncitizens and felons, and eligible but excluded groups, such as overseas citizens." They argue that, when calculated as a percentage of the VEP instead of the VAP, voter turnout in the United States had not actually declined between 1972 and 2000, and that the "apparent decline" over that period was actually due to an increase in the number of inellgible voting-age people. In 1972, noncitizens and ineligible felons constituted about 2% of the VAP; by 2000, ineligible voters constituted nearly 10%. When adjusting for this, there were no identifiable turnout trends over that period.
Additionally, ineligible voters are not evenly distributed across the country. For example, roughly 15% of California's voting-age population is ineligible to vote, which confounds comparisons of states.
The following table shows the available data on turnout for the voting-age population (VAP) and the voting-eligible population (VEP) since 1932.
Election Voting-age population (VAP) Voting-eligible population (VEP) Turnout Turnout as % of VAP Turnout as % of VEPnational-1789-present – United States Elections Project These numbers are taken from Vital Statistics of American Politics (CQ Press, Stanley and Niemi, eds.). Turnout rates from 1948–present are reported here and pre-1948 turnout rates are from Walter Dean Burnham [“The Turnout Problem” in Elections American Style ed., Reichley (Brookings: Washington D.C., 1987)], to whom I and many others are deeply indebted.
Of course, historical turnout rates are calculated from data of dubious accuracy and are at times incomplete when statistics on a class of enfranchised populationsuch white male property owners who meet a religious testmust be estimated. However, these historical turnout rates are regarded as the most accurate available. Winner votes Runner-up votes Winner as % of VEP Runner-up as % of VEP 2024 numbers estimated by the Election Lab at the University of Florida as of March 2, 2026. This estimate will be revised as additional data becomes available.
Turnout by U.S. state The Constitution originally gave states the authority to decide who had the right to vote, and the power to decide the time, place, and manner of elections. Despite Constitutional amendments prohibiting restrictions of the franchise by race, sex, or against people over 18, and outlawing the poll tax, and other national legislation, states still administer voter registration and elections in ways which can impact turnout, and variations in competitiveness between the states lead to variations in turnout.
+2020 voter turnout by stateStateTotal ballots castVoting eligible population2020 general election turnoutas a percentage of VEPUnited States159,738,337242,077,78365.99%Alabama2,325,0003,782,86161.46%Alaska361,400529,64968.23%Arizona3,420,5855,133,80466.63%Arkansas1,223,6752,178,32856.17%California17,785,15125,840,03568.83%Colorado3,295,6664,297,22576.69%Connecticut1,861,0862,655,21470.09%Delaware509,241745,13168.34%District of Columbia346,491503,11868.87%Florida11,144,85515,742,62470.79%Georgia5,023,1597,490,83867.06%Hawaii579,7841,047,46655.35%Idaho878,5271,352,91464.94%Illinois6,050,0009,095,23866.52%Indiana3,068,5425,025,42161.06%Iowa1,700,1302,360,12572.04%Kansas1,375,1252,112,45865.10%Kentucky2,150,9543,339,51164.41%Louisiana2,169,4013,382,28664.14%Maine828,3051,106,27674.87%Maryland3,066,9454,416,32669.45%Massachusetts3,658,0055,129,75571.31%Michigan5,579,3177,615,24973.27%Minnesota3,292,9974,157,41179.21%Mississippi1,325,0002,185,43360.63%Missouri3,026,0284,620,29065.49%Montana612,075857,95571.34%Nebraska966,9201,400,06969.06%Nevada1,407,7542,191,18864.25%New Hampshire814,4991,101,29473.96%New Jersey4,635,5856,435,01972.04%New Mexico928,2301,534,60060.49%New York8,690,13914,081,95761.71%North Carolina5,545,8487,811,00271.00%North Dakota364,251577,56763.07%Ohio5,974,1218,906,27767.08%Oklahoma1,565,0002,875,49454.43%Oregon2,413,8903,204,22475.33%Pennsylvania6,958,5519,950,39269.93%Rhode Island522,488828,19463.09%South Carolina2,533,0103,914,64264.71%South Dakota427,529651,55465.62%Tennessee3,065,0005,174,22559.24%Texas11,350,00018,982,17159.79%Utah1,515,8452,255,17567.22%Vermont370,968520,64171.25%Virginia4,523,1426,300,71771.79%Washington4,116,8945,465,49675.33%West Virginia802,7261,403,69957.19%Wisconsin3,310,0004,410,78075.04%Wyoming278,503430,16164.74%
History of voter turnout
Early 19th century: Universal white male suffrage The gradual expansion of the right to vote from only property-owning men to including all white men over 21 was an important movement in the period from 1800 to 1830. Older states with property restrictions dropped them, namely all but Rhode Island, Virginia and North Carolina by the mid-1820s. No new states had property qualifications, although three had adopted tax-paying qualificationsOhio, Louisiana, and Mississippi, of which only in Louisiana were these significant and long-lasting.Engerman, pp. 8–9 The process was peaceful and widely supported, except in Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, the Dorr Rebellion of the 1840s demonstrated that the demand for equal suffrage was broad and strong, although the subsequent reform included a significant property requirement for any resident born outside of the United States. However, free black men lost voting rights in several states during this period.
The fact that a man was now legally allowed to vote did not necessarily mean he routinely voted. He had to be pulled to the polls, which became the most important role of the local parties. These parties systematically sought out potential voters and brought them to the polls. Voter turnout soared during the 1830s, reaching about 80% of the adult male population in the 1840 presidential election.William G. Shade, "The Second Party System". in Paul Kleppner, et al. Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1983) pp. 77–111 Tax-paying qualifications remained in only five states by 1860Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and North Carolina.Engerman, p. 35. Table 1
Another innovative strategy for increasing voter participation and input followed. Prior to the presidential election of 1832, the Anti-Masonic Party conducted the nation's first presidential nominating convention. Held in Baltimore, Maryland, September 26–28, 1831, it transformed the process by which political parties select their presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
1870s: African American male suffrage The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870 affirmed African American men the right to vote. The first record of a black man voting after the amendment's adoption was when Thomas Mundy Peterson cast his vote on March 31, 1870, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in a referendum election, adopting a revised city charter. During Reconstruction (1865–1877), sixteen black men served in Congress, and 2,000 black men served in elected local state and federal positions. While this historic expansion of rights resulted in significant increases in the eligible voting population and may have contributed to the increases in the proportion of votes cast for president as a percentage of the total population during the 1870s, there does not seem to have been a significant long-term increase in the percentage of eligible voters who turn out for the poll. United States vs. Reese (1876), the first supreme court decision interpreting the fifteenth amendment, may have set the cause of African American male suffrage back again. In United States v. Reese (1876), the Supreme Court upheld limitations on suffrage, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and a grandfather clause that exempted citizens from other voting requirements if their grandfathers had been registered voters. The Court also stated that the amendment "does not confer the right of suffrage to anyone," but it "invests citizens of the United States with the right of exemption from discrimination." This subtle distinction between suffrage and the right to be exempt from discrimination may have legitimized the disenfranchisement of black people. The disenfranchisement of most African Americans and many poor whites in the South during the years 1890–1910 likely contributed to the decline in overall voter turnout percentages during those years visible in the chart above.
Early 1920s: Women's suffrage There was no systematic collection of voter turnout data by gender at a national level before 1964, but smaller local studies indicate a low turnout among female voters in the years following women's suffrage in the United States. For example, a 1924 study of voter turnout in Chicago found that "female Chicagoans were far less likely to have visited the polls on Election Day than were men in both the 1920 presidential election (46% vs. 75%) and the 1923 mayoral contest (35% vs. 63%)." The study compared reasons given by male and female non-voters and found that female non-voters were more likely to cite general indifference to politics and ignorance or timidity regarding elections than male non-voters, and that female voters were less likely to cite fear of loss of business or wages. Most significantly, however, 11% of female non-voters in the survey cited a "Disbelief in woman's voting" as the reason they did not vote.