Non-voters are persons entitled to vote who do not exercise their right to vote as they neither
go to the polls nor vote by postal ballot.
Non-voters are as insignificant for the distribution of votes as invalid votes. The number of
seats a party has obtained in the German Bundestag is as a rule based on the second votes cast for
all of its Land lists.
In contrast to invalid votes, non-voters are not included in the calculation of the voter
turnout.
At the 2009 Bundestag election, voter turnout was 70.8%, which means that 29.2% of the
62,168,489 persons entitled to vote – that is 18,162,914 persons – did not participate in the
election.
