El electorado acudió a depositar su voto.

Because el electorado is a collective noun: it refers to the electorate as a group. In Spanish, collective nouns are usually treated as grammatically singular, so the verb is singular too:

• El electorado acudió...
• not El electorado acudieron...

This is similar to English the electorate or the public, which can also be treated as a single group.

El electorado is a bit more formal, institutional, and collective. It refers to the body of eligible voters or the voting public as a whole.

By contrast, los votantes means the voters and focuses more directly on the individual people.

So:

• el electorado = the electorate
• los votantes = the voters

In news reports, political commentary, and formal writing, electorado is very common.

Acudir often means to go, to come, to turn up, or to attend, depending on context. In this sentence, acudió suggests that the electorate turned out or went to vote.

It is slightly more formal than simply saying fue.

Common patterns include:

• acudir a un lugar = to go to a place / to attend
• acudir a una cita = to attend an appointment
• acudir a las urnas = to go to the polls

So here it gives a formal, news-style tone.

Because acudir a + infinitive is a normal structure in Spanish when the idea is going somewhere in order to do something or coming to do something.

So:

• acudió a depositar su voto = went/turned out to cast their vote

This a is not optional here. It links acudir with the action that follows.

You will see similar structures with other verbs:

• vino a ayudar = he/she came to help
• salió a comprar pan = he/she went out to buy bread

Both are possible, but depositar su voto is more formal and more typical of journalistic or official language.

• votar = to vote
• depositar su voto = literally to deposit/cast one’s vote

It evokes the physical act of placing the ballot in the ballot box, although in practice it simply means to vote.

So the sentence could be made more neutral and everyday as:

• El electorado acudió a votar.

But the original sounds more formal and polished.

Because el electorado is grammatically singular, Spanish treats the possessed noun as singular too:

• el electorado ... su voto

Even though the group contains many people, the sentence is speaking about the electorate as one collective entity.

This is very natural in Spanish with collective nouns. The idea is not that there was literally only one vote, but that the group performed the act of voting as a whole.

If the sentence were focused on individual voters, you might more naturally see something like:

• Los votantes acudieron a depositar sus votos.

Technically, su can mean all of those depending on context. In this sentence, it corresponds best to their, because it refers to el electorado as a collective.

That said, remember that Spanish possessives agree with the thing possessed, not with the possessor:

• su voto = vote is singular, so su
• sus votos = votes is plural, so sus

So su does not tell you whether the possessor is singular or plural by itself; context does that.

The preterite is used because the sentence describes a completed action in the past: the electorate turned out and voted.

• acudió = preterite, 3rd person singular of acudir

This is the normal tense for reporting a finished event, especially in news-style narration.

Compare:

• El electorado acudió... = The electorate turned out... / did turn out...
• El electorado acudía... = The electorate used to turn out / was turning out...

The imperfect acudía would suggest repetition, background description, or an unfinished past action, which is not the point here.

The accent mark shows the stress: a-cu-DIÓ.

It is needed because the final -ió would otherwise not clearly show the intended stress pattern. In the preterite of many -er and -ir verbs, the 3rd person singular has a written accent:

• acudió
• comió
• vivió

So this is a normal spelling feature of the tense, not something unusual about acudir itself.

Yes. El electorado fue a votar is grammatically correct and easy to understand. However, it sounds less formal and less elegant than the original.

Compare the tone:

• acudió a depositar su voto = formal, journalistic, institutional
• fue a votar = straightforward, everyday
• acudió a votar = still formal, but simpler than the original

So the choice depends on register.

Yes, depositar el voto is also possible in some contexts, but depositar su voto is more natural when the subject is the person or group doing the voting.

Compare:

• Los ciudadanos acudieron a depositar su voto.
  This highlights that each person cast their own vote.

• Los ciudadanos acudieron a depositar el voto.
  This sounds less personal and is less common in this kind of sentence.

So su voto is the more idiomatic choice here.

Not especially. It sounds more like news reporting, political commentary, or formal written Spanish.

In everyday speech, people would more likely say something simpler, such as:

• La gente fue a votar.
• Los votantes fueron a votar.
• Hubo mucha participación.

So the original is absolutely correct, but its register is fairly formal.

A careful pronunciation in standard Peninsular Spanish would be approximately:

• El elec-to-RA-do a-cu-DIÓ a de-po-si-TAR su VO-to

A few useful points:

• c before e in electorado is pronounced like th in much of Spain: elektoRAdo with th? Actually here the c is before t, so it is a hard k sound: e-lek-to-RA-do.
• acudió is stressed on the last syllable: diÓ
• voto is stressed on VO

In connected speech, the two a sounds in acudió a depositar run together smoothly.