Voting
A high voter turnout is a sign that a country’s political system enjoys a strong degree of participation. Voter turnout rates vary hugely across the region (Figure 6.13). Over nine in every ten people turn out to vote in parliamentary elections in Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam, compared to less than one in every two people in Azerbaijan, Fiji, Georgia, and Pakistan, the lowest turnouts in the Asia/Pacific region. More than half of the eligible population votes in all other countries for data on voter turnout in parliamentary elections.
Voter turnout has declined in some OECD and Asia/Pacific countries (Figure 6.13). Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Fiji and Uzbekistan have experienced the sharpest decline in voter turnout since the 2000s. In contrast, voter participation increased most in Singapore and Turkmenistan since the 2000s.
Confidence in the electoral process is an essential element for the civic participation of citizens. Trust in honesty of elections increased in most countries across the Asia/Pacific region (Figure 6.14). Confidence in fair elections increased most in Armenia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines (by about or more than 20 percentage points); while the largest decline in trust in the election process was observed in Hong Kong, China.
In general, people who live in countries with higher trust in elections also appear to have strong confidence in the national government across the Asia/Pacific region and vice versa (Figure 6.15). India, Indonesia and Singapore tend to report high trust in elections and high confidence in national government while Georgia and Mongolia report limited confidence in government and election processes. However, the high trust in elections is not always associated with confidence in the national government. More than 70% of Azerbaijanis and Kazakhs report their trust in the national government, but only one in two trusts the election process (Figure 6.15).
Voting in national parliamentary elections is one indicator of people’s participation in their community’s national life. The indicator used here to measure the participation of individuals in the electoral process is the “Voting age population turnout”, i.e. the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted – as available from administrative records of member countries. Different types of elections occur in different countries according to their institutional structure and different geographical jurisdictions. For some countries, it should be noted, turnout for presidential elections and regional elections may be higher than for national parliamentary elections, perhaps because those elected through these ballots are constitutionally more important for how those countries are run. Data about voter turnout were extracted from the international database managed by the Institute for Democratic and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
Data on confidence in “fairness of elections” were taken from the Gallup World Poll. The Gallup World Poll is conducted in more than 150 countries around the world based on a common questionnaire, translated into the predominant languages of each country. With few exceptions, all samples are probability based and nationally representative of the resident population aged 15 years and over in the entire country, including rural areas. While this ensures a high degree of comparability across countries, results may be affected by sampling and non-sampling error, and variation in response rates. Hence, results should be interpreted with care. These probability surveys are valid within a statistical margin of error, also called a 95% confidence interval. This means that if the survey were conducted 100 times using the exact same procedures, the margin of error would include the “true value” in 95 out of 100 surveys. Sample sizes vary across countries from 1 000 to 4 000, and as the surveys use a clustered sample design the margin of error varies by question. The margin of error declines with increasing sample size: with a sample size of 1 000, the margin of error at a 95% confidence interval is 0.98/ or 3%; with a sample size of 4 000, this is 1.5%. To minimise the effect of annual fluctuations in responses related to small sample sizes, results are averaged over a three-year period, or two-year period in case of missing data. If only one observation in a three-year period is available, this finding is not reported.
Data on confidence in the fairness of elections is based on the following question: “In this country, do you have confidence in each of the following, or not? How about honesty of elections?”
Note: Voting age population turnout, i.e. the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted – as available from administrative records of member countries.
Source: Institute for Democratic and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) (2021), www.idea.int/.
Source: Gallup (2021), Gallup World Poll, http://www.gallup.com.
Source: Gallup (2021), Gallup World Poll, http://www.gallup.com.