After an election in a small town, the newspaper reported that 42% of the registered voters actually voted. If 12,000 people voted, how many people are registered to vote in the town?

Since 42% of the voters voted and 12000 people voted, we can conclude that:

12,000=42% of the population.

I set this up like this:

12,000=0.42 x, substituting x for the total population.

Divide both sides by 0.42 to get x by itself.

x = 28571.43.

Your final answer is 28,572 people, because you can't have 0.43 of a person.