Make Voting Mandatory The U.S. prides itself as the beacon of
democracy, but it’s very likely no U.S. president has ever been
elected by a majority of American adults. It’s our own fault --
because voter participation rates are running below 60 percent,
a candidate would have to win 85 percent or more of the vote to
be elected by a majority. Compulsory voting, as exists in
Australia and more than two dozen other countries, would fix
that problem. As William Galston of the Brookings Institution
argues, “Jury duty is mandatory; why not voting?” Mandating
voting has a clear effect: It raises participation rates. Before
Australia adopted compulsory voting in 1924, for example, it had
turnout rates similar to those of the U.S. After voting became
mandatory, participation immediately jumped from 59 percent in
the election of 1922 to 91 percent in the election of 1925. The
political scientists Lisa Hill and Jonathon Louth of the
University of Adelaide note that “turnout rates among the voting
age population in Austr