According to a study by the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California, more than 75 million people eligible to vote — including nearly 35 million Black, Hispanic and Asian American people — did not cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. That's even though the 66% of voting-eligible people who did turn out was the highest rate in any national election in decades. The report, which used voter registration and U.S. Census race data based in part on estimates, defined a person as eligible if they were a citizen and old enough to register.

The U.S. turnout rate is consistently lower than other established democracies, said Mindy Romero, director of the center at USC. The electorate that votes is not representative of the full population, she added, “and that’s not good for those communities that are underrepresented."

“What we know historically is that our elected officials in our country are not hearing from all voters on the full range of issues and needs and concerns of Americans. They’re only hearing from a subset,” Romero said. "Good policy requires that elected officials see the full slate of information and needs as they decide how to distribute resources.”

Many Americans do not vote consistently. In a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll that examined voting behavior among voting-age U.S. citizens prior to the 2020 election, the largest segment of those polled — 44% — said they sometimes vote, compared with around 3 in 10 who almost always cast a ballot. The smallest but still significant group — 25% — never vote or had voted in no more than one election.

In 2020, nonvoters were more likely than voters to be young, not college educated, never married, have a low household income and be a person of color, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of the electorate. Nearly 4 in 10 nonvoters during the 2020 election were under 30, whereas only about 1 in 10 voters were, VoteCast found.