Are the turnout functions in democracies and nondemocracies different beasts that cannot be compared or are there more similarities than differences in the constituents of electoral turnout in the two universes of cases? Interested in this question, I compare electoral turnout in democracies and nondemocracies. Based on a large‐scale dataset, which includes data for over 540 elections over an 18‐year period (1994–2012), I find distinct patterns in the predictors of turnout across the two regime types. One the one hand, my results indicate that the influence of institutions such as compulsory voting or electoral rules is alike in democracies and nondemocracies. However, the same cannot be said for contextual factors such as corruption or electoral closeness, whose influence fundamentally differs in the two settings.Related Articles Kostadinova, Tatiana. 2009. “.” Politics & Policy 37 (): 691‐714. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2009.00194.x/abstract Stockemer, Daniel, and Stephanie Parent. 2014. “.” Politics & Policy 42 (): 221‐245. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12067/abstract Caillier, James. 2010. “.” Politics & Policy 38 (): 1015‐1035. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2010.00267.x/abstract Related Media . 2016. http://www.idea.int/vt/viewdata.cfm Schmitter, Philippe C., and Terry Lynn Karl. 1991. Short excerpt from “What Democracy Is… and Is Not.” Journal of Democracy (Summer). http://www.bu.edu/washington/files/2015/01/Schmitter-and-Lynn-What-Democracy-Is-and-Is-Not.pdf