The Global Dataset on Turnout (GD-Turnout)

In this research note, we introduce the Global Dataset on Turnout (GD-Turnout), which includes information on 3217 elections for 190 countries from 1945 to 2020. GD-Turnout is benchmarked to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) dataset on elections, the current most popular voter turnout dataset. The novel GD-Turnout dataset specifically defines its unit of analysis for countries, includes 675 more elections than IDEA, and all of IDEA's rounds, where information was available. GD-Turnout employed a transparent, two-phase data-gathering process, including new, previously unconsidered information about each election. To our knowledge, it is the most comprehensive voter turnout dataset and is freely available at Harvard's Dataverse, offering a new source for voting and elections research.