On November 8, millions of voters will turn out to decide whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. And millions of eligible voters will just stay home.
Voter turnout in the United States is incredibly low compared to other modern democracies. In the 2012 presidential election, 53.6 percent of the voting-age population turned out to vote. This puts the United States well behind countries such as Turkey (84.3 percent turnout in 2015) and Belgium (87.2 percent in 2014), where voting is compulsory. But the U.S. also lags behind other countries with voluntary voting, such as Sweden (82.6 percent turnout in 2014), France (71.6 percent in 2012) and many others. In fact, the U.S. ranks 31st out of 35 developed countries in voter turnout, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.