A total of 54.83 million votes were polled for the National Assembly in the General Elections, 2018, out of 105.96 million registered voters, recording a turnout of 55.6%.
The 2018 general elections were held on 25 July 2018. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by Imran Khan, won the largest number of seats and formed the government. The 2018 elections were the first in which gender-disaggregated turnout data — distinguishing between male and female votes polled — were officially captured and published at the assembly level, providing a historically significant baseline for measuring women’s participation in Pakistani elections.
Of the 105.96 million registered voters, 59.23 million — 55.9% — were male and 46.73 million — 44.1% — were female. The gender gap in voter registration stood at 12.49 million, representing 11.8% of the total registered electorate.
At the National Assembly level, 54.83 million votes were polled against a registered electorate of 105.96 million, producing an overall turnout of 55.6%. This figure reflects votes cast across all National Assembly constituencies in the four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory, and — from 2002 onwards — the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which were subsequently merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the Twenty-Fifth Constitutional Amendment in 2018.
The 2018 elections were among the first in Pakistan’s history for which gender-disaggregated votes-polled data were officially published at the national assembly level. Male voters cast 32.94 million votes at the National Assembly level, amounting to a male turnout of 55.6% against the male registered electorate. Female voters cast 21.74 million votes, amounting to a female turnout of 46.5% against the female registered electorate. The gender gap in turnout — the difference between male and female participation rates — was 9.1 percentage points.
Of the votes polled at the National Assembly level, 1,705,348 ballots — 3.1% of total votes cast — were declared rejected or invalid. Rejected ballots include votes cast on incorrect ballot papers, those on which no mark was made, those bearing marks on multiple candidates, and those bearing marks that could not be attributed to a valid candidate. The rejection rate is a measure of the quality of voter instruction and the accessibility of the ballot design across the electorate.
Across all five assembly elections conducted concurrently in 2018, Punjab recorded the highest absolute number of votes polled, consistent with the province’s share of the national registered electorate. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan returned lower absolute polling figures, in proportion to their smaller registered electorates.
FAFEN’s analysis of Pakistan’s twelve general elections between 1970 and 2024 situates the 2018 National Assembly turnout of 55.6% within the broader trend of participation rates. The highest recorded National Assembly turnout across this period was 54.9% in 2013. The lowest was 34.8% in 1997.
