How U.S. Voter Turnout Measures Up in Asia

Despite reaching a 120-year high in voter turnout, participation in most recent U.S. elections is still behind those of many elections that recently took place in Asian countries.

According to numbers by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, participation in the latest Indonesian presidential election hit 82.4 percent, while 72.6 percent of the voting age-population took part in the parliamentary election taking place at the same time. Participation also exceeded 2020 U.S. levels recently in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Korea and the Philippines, which held their last national election in 2016 and their last midterm in 2018.

Malaysia, Japan and Pakistan had low voter turnout rates for Asian standards in their latest elections. For Japan, only the turnout of registered voters is available and the turnout among all citizens eligible to vote will likely be even lower than the listed number. In Malaysia, a gap in those of voting age and those registered to vote actually leads to a low participation rate. In Pakistan, only 40 percent out of those in the voting age bracket and only 50 percent of those registered actually voted in 2018.

The highest turnout rates in Asian countries (excluded from this chart) can be found in one-party states Vietnam (98.3 percent) and Laos (87.3 percent). Countries with compulsory voting - Singapore (55.4 percent) and Thailand (69.8 percent) - did not achieve outstanding results partly due to the fact that big gaps in registered voters and those who would be eligible exist here also.