nonvoter

noun non·vot·er \ ˌnän-ˈvō-tər \

Updated on: 27 Feb 2018

Definition of nonvoter

plural nonvoters

: a person who fails or chooses not to vote or does not have the legal right to vote

A mere 37 percent of the eligible electorate voted in the 1986 Congressional elections, the vast majority of nonvoters arguably casting ballots of no confidence.
—Richard Caplan

Recent Examples of nonvoter from the Web

The Trump administration is supporting Ohio, saying the Motor Voter law requires states to adequately notify nonvoters before they are purged but doesn’t prohibit the use of voting history altogether.

— greg stohr, Bloomberg.com, "Voter-Purge Efforts Get Support at U.S. High Court Session," 10 Jan. 2018
The thrashing of Washington culture by voters, nonvoters, members of Congress — that much is a sacred rite.

— matt flegenheimer, New York Times, "‘Petty Nonsense’ of Washington: Tillerson Joins in Thrashing the Capital," 4 Oct. 2017
This is like a long-term structural problem that the Democratic Party has and there’s reason to believe that a lot of nonvoters lean more Democratic.

— isaac chotiner, Slate Magazine, "Can This Donkey Be Saved?," 27 June 2017
The Wisconsin study broadly confirms the results of another survey of nonvoters conducted by Rice University scholars after the 2014 congressional election.

— michael wines, New York Times, "Wisconsin Strict ID Law Discouraged Voters, Study Finds," 25 Sep. 2017
And the impact is also stronger among people who did not participate in previous elections, indicating that the attacks mobilized nonvoters.

— laia balcells, Washington Post, "Half a million marched this weekend in Barcelona. Do terror attacks make people more politically engaged?," 28 Aug. 2017
In the census data, though, long lines were only cited by just over 2 percent of nonvoters, about the same as in 2012.

— gene balk / fyi guy, The Seattle Times, "Voters in Washington hated both Trump and Clinton more than in any other state," 23 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'nonvoter.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.