One of the most frequent user requests for additional queries is the ranking of ridings by their rate of voter participation, or "Turnout" (TO). Although Turnout is reported throughout the database, nowhere are ridings ranked by turnout, whether high or low, and nowhere was it easy to find ridings with the greatest increases and decreases in turnout ... until now.

In fact, given the very low overall rate of voter turnout in the recent election, now seemed as good a time as any to get around to this item of work.

For a full definition and discussion of Turnout see the relevant section on the Pundit Metrics page. It is usually expressed as a percent -- "Total Ballots"/"Electors on the List" -- meaning that rejected ballots as well as ballots validly cast for a candidate are all included when determining Turnout. On the other hand, the vote share/vote percent obtained by a candidate and/or a party is calculated using only the "Valid Ballots" ("Candidate Vote"/("Total Ballots" - "Rejected Ballots")).

So without further ado I present four new "Election Pundit Queries", which you can access from the "Search the Database" page, from the "Pundit Queries" tab on the "Browse Elections" page, or more simply just from here:

• Ridings with the highest turnouts
• Ridings with the lower turnouts
• Ridings with the greatest increases in turnout
• Ridings with the greatest decreases in turnout

Since results are shown for every riding for every election, they can all take a second to load ... so try to be patient !

Labels: Voter Turnout