turnout

Turnout is the number or share of people who actually came — voters at an election, spectators at a match, members at a meeting. A high turnout, a record low turnout, turnout was thirty-two percent.

In politics it is a headline figure and always a proportion of those eligible rather than a raw count, which is why turnout can fall while the number of votes rises. There is a second sense in horses and dance: turnout is the outward rotation of the legs from the hip, and in a stable, turnout means putting a horse out into a field. Note that turnout is one word as a noun and two as a verb — turn out.