nonvoter

noun non·vot·er \ ˌnän-ˈvō-tər \

|Updated on: 13 Aug 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

That means appealing to their base with more liberal candidates and trying to win over nonvoters who lean left, such as high school students or Latino voters.

— amber phillips, Washington Post, "Why Democrats trying to build a blue wave in Texas are leaning left in the primaries," 21 May 2018
Less clear is how online voter registration changes the electorate, which across the country is older, wealthier, and more educated than nonvoters.

— jonathan lai, Philly.com, "Online voter registration in Pa., three years in: More than 1 in 5 voters register online," 12 July 2018
The Obama-to-Trump voters are largely moderate whites, while the Obama-to-nonvoters are largely liberal people of color.

— seth masket, Vox, "What Democratic candidates’ priorities say about the party’s direction," 30 May 2018
Those motivated to vote are more likely to be better educated, more affluent, and older than nonvoters.

— jonathan lai, Philly.com, "What we can learn from low Pa. primary election turnout, and why it matters that just 1 in 6 Philly voters showed up," 21 May 2018
For example, nearly three-quarters of Obama-to-Trump voters supported repeal of the [Affordable Care Act], while less than half of Obama-to-nonvoters did...

— mark murray, NBC News, "2020 study: It's the drop-off voters, stupid," 12 Mar. 2018
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

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.