Do some countries have compulsory voting?
Compulsory voting
Compulsory voting is increasingly resented by citizens in some countries such as Brazil, the largest country where compulsory voting is enforced: at the last presidential election in 2014, some 30 million voters, about 21% of registered voters, did not vote, despite the fact that Brazil has some of the most severe penalties enforced against non voters.
Compulsory voting
Venezuela and the Netherlands are countries that have moved from compulsory voting to voluntary participation. The last Dutch compulsory election was in 1967. Turnout in the subsequent national poll decreased by around 20%. Venezuela saw a drop in attendance of 30% in 1993 once compulsion was removed.
Election
Ballots in a show election may contain only one "yes" option. In the case of a simple "yes or no" question, people who pick "no" are often persecuted, thus making the "yes" choice the only option. An example of this is the elections of the People's Parliaments in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940 shortly after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states; where those who voted received stamps in their passport for voting and those who did not vote did not receive stamps and were persecuted as enemies of the people. Another example is in contemporary North Korea.
Canvassing
Originating in the United Kingdom, canvassing is most widespread in those countries that have borrowed from the British political system. It is standard practice in elections in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In India, despite the million or more voters in many constituencies, parties have made the effort to have canvassers visit the door of each house in each village.
Voting age
Eighteen is the most common voting age, with a small minority of countries differing from this rule. Those with a national minimum age of 17 include East Timor, Greece, Indonesia, North Korea, South Sudan and Sudan. The minimum age is 16 in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey (three self-governing British Crown Dependencies). People aged 16–18 can vote in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro if employed. The highest minimum voting age is 21 in several nations. Some countries have variable provision for the minimum voting age, whereby a lower age is set for eligibility to vote in state, regional or municipal elections.
Compulsory voting
A postal vote may be available for those for whom it is difficult to attend a polling station. Pre-poll voting at nominated polling stations in Australia has been increasing in recent years.
Voter apathy
Compulsory voting would ensure all citizens would have their opinions heard.
Contingent vote
Today, a special variant of the contingent vote is used to elect the President of Sri Lanka. Another variant, called the supplementary vote, is used to elect mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners in England. In the past the ordinary form of the contingent vote was used to elect the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1892 to 1942. To date, this has been the longest continuous use of the system anywhere in the world. It was also used in the US state of Alabama in the 1920s.
Right of foreigners to vote
In most countries, suffrage, the right to vote, is generally limited to citizens of the country. Some countries, however, extend voting rights to resident non-citizens. Such voting rights extended to non-citizens are often restricted or limited in some ways, with the details of the restrictions or limitations varying from one country to another. Voting rights to non-citizens may or may not extend to a right to run for an elected or other public office.
Voting rights in Singapore
One issue that has arisen is whether a Singaporean who votes in a foreign country where the right to vote is not exclusive to nationals of that country is disqualified from voting in a Singapore election. For instance, the United Kingdom permits citizens of Commonwealth countries, including Singapore, who are resident in the UK and have leave to remain there (or do not require such leave) to register to vote in general elections and local government elections. When queried, the Elections Department stated that since suffrage in the UK is not exclusive to British citizens, Singaporeans who vote there are still eligible to vote in Singapore. However, this interpretation of the PEA has not been tested in court.
Electoral roll
Electoral rolls, under various names, are used in, for example, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, but not all jurisdictions require voter registration as a prerequisite for voting, such as in the State of North Dakota in the United States. Most jurisdictions close updating of electoral rolls some period, commonly 14 or 28 days, before an election, but some American jurisdictions allow registration at the same time as attending a polling station to vote, and Australia closes the rolls 7 days after an election is called, rather than with reference to election day.
Optional preferential voting
In other countries, such as Malta, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland, full preferences are not required.
Exhaustive ballot
Because voters may have to cast votes several times, the exhaustive ballot is not used in large-scale public elections. Instead it is usually used in elections involving, at most, a few hundred voters, such as the election of a prime minister or the presiding officer of an assembly. The exhaustive ballot is currently used, in different forms, to elect the members of the Swiss Federal Council, the First Minister of Scotland, the President of the European Parliament, and the speakers of the House of Commons of Canada, the British House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament, the various party nominees for President of the United States, the host city of the Olympic Games and the host of the FIFA World Cup, and, formerly, to elect the President and the State Comptroller of Israel, which are now elected – though still indirectly by the Knesset – using a two-round system.
Electoral system of Australia
Following the 2004 federal election, at which the Liberal-National coalition government won a majority in both houses, a senior minister, Senator Nick Minchin, said that he favoured the abolition of compulsory voting. Some prominent Liberals, such as Petro Georgiou, former chair of the Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, have spoken in favour of compulsory voting.
Voting age
A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain before they become eligible to vote in a public election. Today, the most common voting age is 18 years; however, voting ages as low as 16 and as high as 25 currently exist (see list below). Most countries have set a minimum voting age, often set in their constitution. In a number of countries voting is compulsory for those eligible to vote, while in most it is optional.
Instant-runoff voting
Because the ballot marking is more complex, there can be an increase in spoiled ballots. In Australia, voters are required to write a number beside every candidate, and the rate of spoiled ballots can be five times higher than plurality voting elections. Since Australia has compulsory voting, however, it is difficult to tell how many ballots are deliberately spoiled. Where complete rankings are not required, a ballot may become exhausted if none of the ranked choices on that ballot advance to the next round.
Compulsory voting
Another argument against compulsory voting, prevalent among legal scholars in the United States, is that it is essentially a compelled speech act, which violates freedom of speech because the freedom to speak necessarily includes the freedom "not" to speak.
Voter turnout
In Luxembourg voting is compulsory, too, but not strongly enforced. In Luxembourg only voters below the age of 75 and those who are not physically handicapped or chronically ill have the legal obligation to vote.
Right of foreigners to vote
As voting is compulsory in Belgium, and all electors are automatically on the electoral rolls (extracted from a computerized National Register), foreign residents have to register voluntarily on the electoral roll, and only then are they subject to the obligation to vote. At the 2006 municipal elections, only 20.9% (110,973 out of 529,878) of the potential EU voters registered (17.6%, or 87,858 out of 498,315 at the 2000 municipal elections), and 15.7% (17,065 out of 108,607) of the potential non-EU voters.
Felony disenfranchisement
Several European countries permit disenfranchisement by special court order, including France, Germany (reinstated after 2–5 years) and the Netherlands. In several others, no disenfranchisements due to criminal convictions exist. Moreover, many European countries encourage people to vote, such as by making pre-voting in other places than the respective election locales easily accessible. This often includes possibilities for prisoners to pre-vote from the prison itself. This is the case for example in Finland.
Elections in Greece
Compulsory voting is the law in Greece but is not enforced. In the past a citizen had to present an up-to-date election booklet in order to be issued a driver licence or a passport, or else justify why they did not vote (e.g. because of absence, infirmity, or advanced old age). Nowadays the civic duty of voting is still considered "mandatory" but there are no sanctions for failing to vote. Turnout is usually high, typically between 70 and 80% for legislative elections and slightly lower for local administrative and European Parliament ones.
Voter registration
In the UK voter registration is compulsory, but the requirement to register is rarely enforced.
The current system of registration in the United Kingdom (UK), introduced by the Labour government, is known as rolling registration. Electors can register with a local authority at any time of the year. This replaced the twice-yearly census of electors, which often disenfranchised those who had moved during the interval between censuses.
Voting in Guam
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) is a United States federal law dealing with elections and voting rights for United States citizens residing overseas. The act requires that all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands allow certain U.S. citizens to register to vote and to vote by absentee ballot in federal elections. The act is Public Law 99-410 and was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on August 28, 1986.
Compulsory voting
These are the countries and sub-national entities that enforce compulsory voting:
Compulsory voting
Supporters of compulsory voting also argue that voting addresses the paradox of voting, which is that for a rational, self-interested voter, the costs of voting will normally exceed the expected benefits. The paradox disproportionately affects the socially disadvantaged, for whom the costs of voting tend to be greater. Australian academic and supporter of compulsory voting, Lisa Hill, has argued that a prisoner's dilemma situation arises under voluntary systems for marginalised citizens: it seems rational for them to abstain from voting, under the assumption that others in their situation are also doing so, in order to conserve their limited resources. However, since these are people who have a pronounced need for representation, this decision is irrational. Hill argues that the introduction of compulsory voting removes this dilemma.
Postal voting
A form of postal voting was introduced in Western Australia in 1877, followed by an improved method in South Australia in 1890. On the other hand, concerns about postal voting have been raised as to whether it complies with the requirements of a secret ballot, in that people cast their vote outside the security of a polling station, and whether voters can cast their vote privately free from another person's coercion. There have been cases of electoral fraud with postal votes in the United Kingdom (including in Birmingham at the 2004 European and local government elections in the UK).
François-Joseph Laflèche
In 1934, Laflèche proposed a motion to legally require Canadian voters to cast a ballot at federal elections at a time when Australia and South Africa had already enacted compulsory voting laws.
Parliament of Australia
Compulsory voting was introduced for federal elections in 1924. The immediate justification for compulsory voting was the low voter turnout (59.38%) at the 1922 federal election, down from 71.59% at the 1919 federal election. Compulsory voting was not on the platform of either the Stanley Bruce-led Nationalist/Country party coalition government or the Matthew Charlton-led Labor opposition. The actual initiative for change was made by Herbert Payne, a backbench Tasmanian Nationalist Senator who on 16 July 1924 introduced a private Senator's bill in the Senate. Payne's bill was passed with little debate (the House of Representatives agreeing to it in less than an hour), and in neither house was a division required, hence no votes were recorded against the bill. The 1925 federal election was the first to be conducted under compulsory voting, which saw the turnout figure rise to 91.4%. The turnout increased to about 95% within a couple of elections and has stayed at about that level since.
History of Argentine nationality
As mentioned in Section 37, Argentina enforces compulsory voting - it is both a right and a duty.
Biometric voter registration
Countries which have used Biometric voting registration include Armenia, Angola, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of), Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, The Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somaliland, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Valencia (Corts Valencianes constituency)
Voting is on the basis of universal suffrage, which comprises all nationals over eighteen, registered in the Valencian Community and in full enjoyment of their political rights. Amendments to the electoral law in 2011 required for Valencians abroad to apply for voting before being permitted to vote, a system known as "begged" or expat vote (). Seats are elected using the D'Hondt method and a closed list proportional representation, with a threshold of 5 percent of valid votes—which includes blank ballots—being applied regionally. Parties not reaching the threshold are not taken into consideration for seat distribution.
Voter registration in the United States
In the United States, such drives are often undertaken by a political campaign, political party, or other outside groups (partisan and non-partisan), that seeks to register persons who are eligible to vote but are not registered. In all states except North Dakota, registration on the electoral roll in the United States is a prerequisite to a person being able to vote at federal, state or local elections, as well as to serve on juries and perform other civil duties. Sometimes these drives are undertaken for partisan purposes, and target specific demographic groups that are likely to vote for one candidate or other; on the other hand, such drives are sometimes undertaken by non-partisan groups and targeted more generally.
2004 European Parliament election in Luxembourg
The Luxembourg electoral system allows each voter to cast as many votes as there are
members to be elected. These figures show the number of votes cast for each party, 
not the number of voters who cast them. Voting at European Parliament elections is obligatory (as is the case with all other kinds of elections in the country).
Right of foreigners to vote
A number of separate supranational groupings of countries exist, and membership in some of these groupings may involve multinational agreements and treaties in which member countries agree to some degree of reciprocity regarding voting rights. Some individual countries are members of more than one supranational groupings, and some supranational groupings of countries are members of other supranational groupings of countries.
Disfranchisement
In some countries, such as China and Portugal, disfranchisement due to criminal conviction is an exception, meted out separately in a particular sentence. Losing voting rights is usually imposed on a person convicted of a crime against the state (see civil death) or one related to election or public office.
Plurality voting
Plurality voting is used for local and/or national elections in 43 of the 193 countries that are members of the United Nations. Plurality voting is particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom and former British colonies, including the United States, Canada and India.
Electoral systems of the Australian states and territories
Like all other states and territories voting in South Australia is compulsory, however unlike other states initial enrolment is not compulsory so a voter could theoretically not be compelled to vote if they chose never to enrol.
Universal suffrage
Citizens of an EU Member State are allowed to vote in EU parliamentary elections, as well as some local elections. For example, a British person living in Graz, Austria, would be entitled to vote for the European Parliament as a resident of the "electoral district" of Austria, and to vote in Graz municipal elections. He would, however, not be entitled to vote in Austrian (federal) elections, or Styrian (state) elections. Similarly, all locally resident EU citizens in the UK are allowed to vote for representatives of the local council, and those resident in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may vote for the devolved parliaments or assemblies. But, only British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens are allowed to vote for the British House of Commons. However, not all British citizens are allowed to vote, since non-resident British citizens lose their franchise after 15 years. In fact the British government is planning to reinstate universal suffrage soon.
Election
In some countries, voting is required by law; if an eligible voter does not cast a vote, he or she may be subject to punitive measures such as a fine. In Western Australia, the penalty for a first time offender failing to vote is a $20.00 fine, which increases to $50.00 if the offender refused to vote prior.
Electoral system of Australia
A counter argument to opponents of compulsory voting is that in these systems the individual still has the practical ability to abstain at the polls by voting informally if they so choose, due to the secrecy of the ballot. A spoilt vote does not count towards any political party and effectively is the same as choosing not to vote under a non-compulsory voting system. However, Singer argues that even the appearance of voluntary participation is sufficient to create an obligation to obey the law.
Universal suffrage
Many democratic countries, for example the United Kingdom and France, have had colonies with citizens living outside of the mother country and have generally not been entitled to vote for the national legislature. A peculiarly complex case is that of Algeria under the Third French Republic: Algeria was legally an integral part of France, but citizenship was restricted (as in other French colonies proper) by legal status, not by race or ethnicity. Any Muslim Algerian could become a French citizen by choosing to live like one. As this required the person to resign jurisdiction under Islamic law in favour of French civic law, very few did. Among Muslims, such a change was considered apostasy from Islam, which was the dominant religion in Algeria. Colonists in America declared Independence from Great Britain citing "No Taxation Without Representation" as one of their main grievances. However, the newly established country did not extend voting rights in the United States beyond white adult male property owners (about 6% of the population), and did not grant its overseas citizens the right to vote in elections either, until the passage of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act in 1986.
Disfranchisement
The United Kingdom suspends suffrage of some but not all prisoners. For example, civil prisoners sentenced for nonpayment of fines can vote. Prior to the judgment in "Hirst v United Kingdom (No 2)", convicted prisoners had the right to vote in law but without assistance by prison authorities, voting was unavailable to them. In Hirst, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that First Protocol Article 3 requires Member States to proactively support voting by authorized inmates. In the UK, as of 2009 this policy is under review as in other European countries like Italy.
History of voting in New Zealand
Whilst the possibility of compulsory voting has gained some traction, current Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has expressed her hesitation, saying that compulsion is an ineffective way to foster democratic engagement in non-voting demographics.
Right of foreigners to vote
However, in 2005 this list of countries was reduced to
Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), P.L. 99-410, , , , is a United States federal law dealing with elections and voting rights for United States citizens residing overseas. The act requires that all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands allow certain U.S. citizens to register to vote and to vote by absentee ballot in federal elections. The act is Public Law 99-410 and was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on August 28, 1986.
Voter suppression
In the United States, elections are administered locally, and forms of voter suppression vary among jurisdictions. At the founding of the country, the right to vote in most states was limited to property-owning white males. Over time, the right to vote was formally granted to racial minorities, women, and youth. During the later 19th and early 20th centuries, Southern states passed Jim Crow laws to suppress poor and racial minority voters – such laws included poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. Most of these voter suppression tactics were made illegal after the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2013, discriminatory voter ID laws arose following the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which some argue amount to voter suppression among African-Americans.
Right of foreigners to vote in the United States
Since enactment of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, federal law has prohibited noncitizens from voting in federal elections, punishing them by fines, imprisonment, inadmissibility, and deportation. Exempt from punishment is any noncitizen who "reasonably believed at the time of voting ... that he or she was a citizen of the United States," had a parent who is or was a citizen, and began permanently living in the United States before turning 16 years old. The federal law does not prohibit noncitizens from voting in state or local elections, but no state has allowed noncitizens to vote in state elections since Arkansas became the last state to outlaw noncitizen voting in 1926. However, in some states, local governments have the power to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Presently, eleven local governments, ten of them in Maryland, allow noncitizens to vote in their local elections. San Francisco allows noncitizen parents to vote in School Board elections.
Voter registration
Registration is mandatory pursuant to section 23 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (No. 341) and violators are liable on summary conviction and face a maximum fine of £1,000. Voters must be on the electoral roll in order to vote in national, local or European elections. A fixed address is required in order for an individual to vote in an election. To provide for persons who are transient, if an individual lacking a fixed address wants to vote, they may register by filling in a 'Declaration of local connection' form. This establishes a connection to the area based on the last fixed address someone had, or the place where they spend a substantial amount of their time (e.g. a homeless shelter).
1925 Australian federal election
Compulsory voting for federal elections was introduced in 1924 and first used in the 1925 elections, where 91.4% of the electorate cast a vote, compared to 59.4% at the 1922 elections.
Representative democracy in Singapore
Voting in Singapore is compulsory. Any citizen above 21 years of age who is not disqualified by the factors in section 6 of the Parliamentary Elections Act is required to vote in person. There is no constitutional provision stipulating any qualifications for voters, and as the Act is an ordinary piece of legislation the disqualifying factors may be changed by a simple majority (more than 50%) of votes in Parliament.
José Antonio Primo de Rivera
I have no faith in the vote of women. However I don't trust the efficacy of the vote of men either. The inaptitude for the poll is the same for her as for him. The universality of the vote is useless and harmful for the peoples who wish to decide their political and historical future by means of voting. I do not believe, for example, that the masses own an opinion on the convenience or inconvenience of some international allegiance or on the maritime policy to follow, or at most, more of an opinion than very few of their representatives. Mr. Antonio Maura made voting compulsory. And what for? In the best of cases the men elected are gentlemen without a will of their own, subordinates of their party, lacking the expertise to solve with unhurried deliberation the toilsome and substantial affairs of the state. Those who are elected are not elected for being the most suitable to the country, but because they are the most accommodating to their superiors, and they have little concern for the laws which once enacted will take the nation down a particular path.
"On the Soviet Union":
Secret ballot
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which entered into force in 2008 assures secret ballot for disabled voters. Article 29 of the Convention requires that all Contracting States protect "the right of the person with disabilities to vote by secret ballot in elections and public referendums". According to this provision, each Contracting State should provide for voting equipment which would enable disabled voters to vote independently and secretly. Some democracies, e.g. the United States, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Albania or India allow disabled voters to use electronic voting machines. In others, among them Azerbaijan, Canada, Ghana, the United Kingdom, and most African and Asian countries, visually impaired voters can use ballots in Braille or paper ballot templates. Article 29 also requires that Contracting States ensure "that voting procedures, facilities and materials are appropriate, accessible and easy to understand and use." In some democracies, e.g. United Kingdom, Sweden and the United States, all the polling places already are fully accessible for disabled voters.
Politics of Belgium
Belgium is one of the few countries that has compulsory voting, thus having one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world.
Electoral system of Australia
Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll, as well as for State and Territory elections. Australia enforces compulsory voting. People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a fine of up to $170 is imposed, and failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing and additional costs. About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote at most elections. In South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia voting at local elections is not compulsory. In the other states, local council elections are also compulsory.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Article 29 requires that all Contracting States protect "the right of persons with disabilities to vote by secret ballot in elections and public referendums". According to this provision, each Contracting State should provide for voting equipment which would enable disabled voters to vote independently and secretly. Some democracies, e.g., the US, Japan, Netherlands, Slovenia, Albania or India allow disabled voters to use electronic voting machines or electronic aides which help disabled voters to fill the paper ballot. In others, among them Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Canada, Ghana, United Kingdom, and most of African and Asian countries, visually impaired voters can use ballots in Braille or paper ballot templates. Many of these and also some other democracies, Chile for example, use adjustable desks so that voters on wheelchairs can approach them. Some democracies only allow another person to cast a ballot for the blind or disabled voter. Such arrangement, however, does not assure secrecy of the ballot.
Compulsory voting
Compulsory voting is a generalised view that democratic election of governing representatives is the responsibility of citizens, rather than a right afforded citizens constitutionally to nominate representatives. Equating in kind to similar civil responsibilities such as taxation, jury duty, compulsory education or military service, voting in these democracies is regarded as one of the "duties to community" mentioned in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This view asserts that, by introducing an obligation to vote, all citizens governed by a democracy partake in the responsibility for the government appointed by democratic election. In practice, this appears to produce governments with more stability, legitimacy and a genuine mandate to govern, which in turn benefits all individuals even if an individual voter's preferred candidate or party is not elected to power.
Voting
Whenever several people who do not all agree need to make some decision, voting is a very common way of reaching a decision peacefully. The right to vote is usually restricted to certain people. Members of a society or club, or shareholders of a company, but not outsiders, may elect its officers, or adopt or change its rules, in a similar way to the election of people to official positions. A panel of judges, either formal judicial authorities or, say, judges of a competition, may make decisions by voting. A group of friends or members of a family may decide which film to see by voting. The method of voting can range from formal submission of written votes, through show of hands, voice voting or audience response systems, to informally noting which outcome seems to be preferred by more people.
Electoral system of New Zealand
Law Society Human Rights committee member, Jonathan Temm, in a written submission, told Parliament's law and order committee that: "It is critical for the function of our democracy that we do not interfere with the right to vote." With specific reference to decisions made by courts in Canada, Australia and South Africa, and by the European Court of Human Rights in respect of the United Kingdom, she pointed out that "every comparable overseas jurisdiction has had a blanket ban (against prisoners' voting) struck down in the last 10 years".
Voter turnout
In Venezuela and the Netherlands compulsory voting has been rescinded, resulting in substantial decreases in turnout.
Election
The question of who may vote is a central issue in elections. The electorate does not generally include the entire population; for example, many countries prohibit those who are under the age of majority from voting, all jurisdictions require a minimum age for voting.
Electoral system of Australia
Compulsory voting has also been promoted for its collective benefits. It becomes difficult for coercion to be used to prevent disadvantaged people (the old, illiterate or disabled) to vote, and for obstacles to be put in the way of classes of individuals (ethnic/coloured; either registration requirements or placement of voting booths) as often happens under other voting systems. The compulsion requirement also needs to be kept in proportion: jury duty and compulsory military service are vastly more onerous citizen's compulsions than attending a local voting booth once every few years. Perhaps the most compelling reason to use a system of compulsory voting is a simple matter of logistics, that is, to facilitate the smooth and orderly process of an election. Every year in countries that do not have compulsory voting election officials have to guess at the numbers of voters who might turn out – this often depends on the vagaries of the weather. Often voters are disenfranchised in those countries when voting officials err and not enough voting booths are provided. Long queues can result with voters being turned away at the close of polling not having had their chance to exercise their democratic right to vote.
Right of foreigners to vote
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty imposed reciprocity inside the European Union concerning voting rights in local elections; this already existed for the European elections. In several European states, the public debate on the right of foreigners to vote was therefore renewed, as some foreign residents had the right to vote (European foreign residents) while others, non-Europeans, did not. As a result of this debate, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Slovenia and Belgium extended the right to vote, in different manners, to all foreign residents (which was already the case in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Netherlands).
Biometrics
There are also numerous countries applying biometrics for voter registration and similar electoral purposes. According to the International IDEA’s ICTs in Elections Database, some of the countries using (2017) Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) are Armenia, Angola, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of), Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Iraq, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, The Philippines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somaliland, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Donkey vote
Donkey votes have been observed in democracies other than Australia, even those without compulsory preferential voting, although the presence of these two factors in Australia makes the phenomenon more visible.
Elections in Australia
Voting in federal, state and territory elections is compulsory for all persons on the electoral roll. Voting can take place by a person attending in person at any polling place in their State on the election day or in early voting locations, or by applying for and mailing in a postal vote. Absentee voting is also available, but not proxy voting.
Absentee ballot
In the 2012, French citizens living abroad were permitted to cast vote electronically in French parliamentary elections (but not in presidential elections). In 2017, however, the system was dropped after the French National Cybersecurity Agency assessed an "extremely high risk" of cyberattacks in the wake of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Similarly, electronic voting was banned in the Netherlands in 2007, and in 2017 Dutch authorities also abandoned electronic vote counting, conducting an all-paper, all-manual vote count in an effort to block foreign interference in its elections.
Suffrage
Where compulsory suffrage exists, those who are eligible to vote are required by law to do so. Thirty-two countries currently practise this form of suffrage.
Right of foreigners to vote
(EU member) Municipal voting rights are granted to citizens of countries which reciprocate by granting voting rights to Spanish citizens when reciprocity is enshrined in a bilateral treaty ratified by Spain, i.e. since 1997 the EU member states and Norway, but already since 1989-1990 Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. Bilateral treaties with Argentina (1988), Chile (1990) and Uruguay (1992) have never been enacted as voting rights are not enshrined in a specific law in Chile, and for the two other countries the instruments of ratification have never been exchanged, there are also similar "friendship treaties" with Colombia and Venezuela. There is an ongoing debate in Spain about either ratifying existing bilateral treaties or changing the constitution in order to grant all residents voting rights without reciprocity, but some Catalan parties are opposed to it.
Voter suppression in the United States
The United States is the only democracy in the world that regularly bans large numbers of felons from voting after they have discharged their sentences. Many countries including Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Norway, Peru, Sweden, and Zimbabwe allow prisoners to vote (unless convicted of crimes against the electoral system). Some countries, notably the U.K., disenfranchise people for only as long as they are in prison (however, this has been challenged by the European Court of Human Rights).
Conscience vote
In most countries, conscience votes are quite rare and are often about issues which are very contentious, or a matter on which the members of any single party differ in their opinions; thus making it difficult for parties to formulate official policies. Usually, a conscience vote will be about religious, moral or ethical issues rather than about administrative or financial ones. Matters such as the prohibition of alcohol, homosexuality law reform and the legality of prostitution are often subject to conscience votes.
Electronic voting by country
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 requires states and territories to allow overseas military personnel and citizens to vote in federal elections. The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009 amended this law to require delivery of ballots by at least one electronic means (email, fax, or web site). As of September 2016, submission of ballots is done by mail in 18 states; the other states and the District of Columbia allow submission by one or more of email, fax, or secure web site.
Voter suppression
In Australia, it is mandatory for citizens to enroll to vote and it is their responsibility to update their enrollment when they change their address. Even so, it is estimated that about 6% of eligible Australian voters are not enrolled, or are enrolled incorrectly. These are disproportionately younger voters, many of whom might neglect to enroll when they attain voting age.
Referendums by country
Originally none of the Bundesländer (federated states) had provisions for a general binding referendum ("Volksentscheid" "people's decision"). Only Hesse and Bavaria have a mandatory binding referendum on changes to the state constitution. However, most states have a form of non-binding ballot question ("Volksbefragung" "people's inquiry") which has rarely been used - the most important one had been the Saar Statute referendum, 1955. General forms of direct democracy were first introduced in the communities with facultative ballot questions ("Bürgerbefragung" "citizens inquiry") and public initiatives ("Bürgerbegehren" "citizens request") that are both non-binding. In some areas, this has been expanded into a binding referendum type ("Bürgerentscheid" "citizens decision") but almost universally facultative. In some states, there is a general right on state popular initiatives ("Volksbegehren" "people's request") which was used in Hamburg to push the state government to pass a law on a facultative binding state referendum ("Volksentscheid") in 2007.
Human rights in Belgium
Eighteen is the age when the right to vote is attained. Universal suffrage was enacted in 1893. Belgium was the first country in the world to introduce compulsory voting, in 1892 for men and 1949 for women. Eligible voters who fail to cast a ballot "face a moderate fine or, if they fail to vote in at least four elections, they can lose the right to vote for 10 years."
Compulsory voting
Former Australian opposition leader Mark Latham urged Australians to lodge blank votes for the 2010 election. He stated the government should not force citizens to vote or threaten them with a fine. At the 2013 federal election, considering the threat of a non-voting fine of up to $20, there was a turnout of 92%, of whom 6% lodged either informal or blank ballot papers.
Voting
Voting often takes place at a polling station; it is voluntary in some countries, compulsory in others, such as Australia.
Electoral reform in the United States
Compulsory voting has been criticized as "vaguely un-American" but potentially beneficial to democracy.
Mandated choice
Mandated choice or mandatory choice is an approach to public policy questions in which people are required by law to state in advance whether or not they are willing to engage in a particular action. The approach contrasts with "opt-in" and "opt-out" ("presumed consent") models of policy formation. The approach has most frequently been applied to cadaveric organ donation, but has increasingly been considered for advance directives as well. One bioethicist, in advocating for a mandatory choice model for living wills, argues that "while all Americans should have a right to decide how they want their lives to end, it does not follow that they should be able to avoid confronting such a choice."
Election day
Election day or polling day is the day on which general elections are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Saturday or Sunday, to enable as many voters as possible to participate; while in other countries elections are always held on a weekday. However, some countries, or regions within a country, which hold elections on a weekday declare election day a public holiday. Countries which permit absentee ballots, early ballots or postal votes to be cast by mail before the election avoid the problem altogether by enabling voters to vote on a day that is more convenient to them.
Compulsory voting
Monash University political scientist Waleed Aly argues that whether compulsory voting favors the right or the left is beside the point, because the most beneficial aspect of compulsory voting is that it will improve the caliber of individuals who run for office and the quality of the decisions that they make: "In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center... That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as vulnerable to demagogues."
Get out the vote
"Get out the vote" (or "getting out the vote"; GOTV) describes efforts aimed at increasing the voter turnout in elections. In countries that do not have or enforce compulsory voting, voter turnout can be low, sometimes even below a third of the eligible voter pool. GOTV is generally not required for elections when there are effective compulsory voting systems in place, other than perhaps to register first time voters.
Voter registration
Voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote register (or enroll) on an electoral roll before they will be entitled or permitted to vote. Such enrollment may be automatic or may require application being made by the eligible voter. The rules governing registration vary between jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions have "election day registration" and others do not require registration, or may require production of evidence of entitlement to vote at time of voting. In some jurisdictions registration by those of voting age is compulsory, while in most it is optional. In jurisdictions where registration is voluntary, an effort may be made to encourage persons otherwise eligible to vote to register, in what is called as a voter registration drive.
Plurality voting
Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand are notable examples of countries within the UK, or with previous links to it, that use non-FPTP electoral systems (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales use FPTP in United Kingdom general elections, however).
Right of expatriates to vote in their country of origin
The right of expatriates to vote in elections in their country of origin varies depending on the legislation of an expatriate’s country of origin. Some countries (such as France) grant their expatriate citizens unlimited voting rights, identical to those of citizens living in their home country. Other countries allow expatriate citizens to vote only for a certain number of years after leaving the country, after which they are no longer eligible to vote (e.g. 15 years for the UK and 25 years for Germany). Other countries reserve the right vote solely to citizens living in that country, thereby stripping expatriate citizens of their voting rights once they leave their home country (such as Ireland, with extremely limited exceptions).
Voter apathy
Voter registration in the United States is an independent responsibility, so citizens choose whether they want to register or not. This led to only 64% of the voting age population being registered to vote in 2016. The United States is one of the sole countries that requires its citizens to register separately from voting. The lack of automatic registration contributes to the issue that there are over a third of eligible citizen in the United States that are not registered to vote.
Liberal democracy
Several nations have forms of compulsory voting, with various degrees of enforcement. Proponents argue that this increases the legitimacy—and thus also popular acceptance—of the elections and ensures political participation by all those affected by the political process and reduces the costs associated with encouraging voting. Arguments against include restriction of freedom, economic costs of enforcement, increased number of invalid and blank votes and random voting.
Mandatory referendum
The mandatory referendum (, , , ) is an instrument of direct democracy in Switzerland. It is a mechanism that holds mandatory votation of some decisions of the federal, cantonal, or municipal parliament and/or government, such as modifications of the Constitution or adhesion to supranational communities on a federal or cantonal level, or for example substantial financial decisions decreed by cantonal and/or communal executive and/or legislative bodies.
Electoral fraud
Voter intimidation involves putting undue pressure on a voter or group of voters so that they will vote a particular way, or not at all. Absentee and other remote voting can be more open to some forms of intimidation as the voter does not have the protection and privacy of the polling location. Intimidation can take a range of forms including verbal, physical, or coercion. This was so common that in 1887, a Kansas Supreme Court in "New Perspectives on Election Fraud in The Gilded Age" said “[…] physical retaliation constituted only a slight disturbance and would not vitiate an election.”Vote buying occurs when a political party or candidate seeks to buy the vote of a voter in an upcoming election. Vote buying can take various forms such as a monetary exchange, as well as an exchange for necessary goods or services. This practice is often used to incentivise or persuade voters to turn out to elections and vote in a particular way. Despite the fact that this practice is illegal in many countries such as the United States, Argentina, Mexico, Kenya and Nigeria, its prevalence remains worldwide.
Automatic Ballot Referral
An Automatic Ballot Referral (or Compulsory referral) is a ballot measure set up by the constitution of a state (or country) to at a certain time have a ballot appear statewide under certain situations.
Voting age
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries voting ages were lowered to 16 in India, Switzerland, Austria, and Morocco. Japan lowered its voting age from 20 to 18 in June 2016. a dispute continued in the Maldives.
Electoral system of Australia
Compulsory voting was introduced for the Queensland state election in 1915, for federal elections since the 1925 federal election, and Victoria introduced it for the Legislative Assembly at the 1927 state election and for Legislative Council elections in 1935. New South Wales and Tasmania introduced compulsory voting in 1928, Western Australia in 1936 and South Australia in 1942.
Electoral system
Plurality voting is a system in which the candidate(s) with the highest number of vote wins, with no requirement to get a majority of votes. In cases where there is a single position to be filled, it is known as first-past-the-post; this is the second most common electoral system for national legislatures, with 58 countries using it to elect their legislatures, the vast majority of which are current or former British or American colonies or territories. It is also the second most common system used for presidential elections, being used in 19 countries.
Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918
Compulsory voting at federal elections was introduced in 1924, as a condition of the Country Party agreeing to form an alliance with the then minority Nationalist Party. Compulsory voting saw voter turnout increasing from 59.36% to 91.39% at the 1925 federal election.
Donkey vote
In systems where voting is not compulsory, it seems counter-intuitive that many who attend the polls would be apathetic. However, there may be countervailing factors that produce a "donkey vote" even with voluntary turnout. In many US elections, a voter may well be intensely interested in (e.g.) the Presidential contest but not in other, less prominent races on the same "long ballot".
Compulsory voting
A study of a Swiss canton where compulsory voting was enforced found that compulsory voting significantly increased electoral support for leftist policy positions in referenda by up to 20 percentage points. Another study found that the effects of universal turnout in the United States would likely be small in national elections, but that universal turnout could matter in close elections, such as the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. In the United States, Democrats would most likely fare better under universal voting (as nonvoters are generally more Democratic) but due to the dearth of close races in the United States, universal voting would change "very few election outcomes." Research on compulsory voting in Australia found that it increased the vote shares and seat shares of the Australian Labor Party by 7 to 10 percentage points and led to greater pension spending at the national level. While [weakly enforced] compulsory voting in Austria increased overall turnout by roughly 10 percentage points, there is "no evidence that this change in turnout affected government spending patterns (in levels or composition) or electoral outcomes." A 2016 study finds that compulsory voting reduces the gender gap in electoral engagement in several ways. A 2016 study of the Netherlands found that the abolition of compulsory voting increased the vote share of Dutch social democratic parties while reducing the vote share of "minor and extreme parties".
Voter turnout
Sanctions for non-voting behaviour were foreseen sometimes even in absence of a formal requirement
to vote. In Italy the Constitution describes voting as a duty (art. 48), though electoral participation is not obligatory. From 1946 to 1992, thus, the Italian electoral law included light sanctions for non-voters (lists of non-voters were posted at polling stations). Turnout rates have not declined substantially since 1992 in Italy, though, pointing to other factors than compulsory voting to explain high electoral participation.
Voting age
Luxembourg has compulsory voting from the age of 18. A proposal by the government to introduce optional voting for those aged 16 and 17 was rejected by 81% of voters in a June 2015 referendum.
Right of foreigners to vote in the United States
Historically, over 40 states or territories, including colonies before the Declaration of Independence, have at some time given at least some aliens voting rights in some or all elections. For example, in 1875, the Supreme Court in "Minor v. Happersett" noted that "citizenship has not in all cases been made a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the right of suffrage. Thus, in Missouri, persons of foreign birth, who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, may under certain circumstances vote."
Ranked voting
There are many types of preferential voting, with several used in governmental elections: Instant-runoff voting is employed in Australian state and federal elections, in Ireland for its presidential elections, and by some jurisdictions in the United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The single transferable vote is used for national elections in the Republic of Ireland and Malta, the Australian Senate, for regional and local elections in Northern Ireland, for all local elections in Scotland, and for some local elections in New Zealand and the United States. Borda count is used in Slovenia and Nauru. Contingent vote and Supplementary vote are also used in a few locations. Condorcet methods have found more use among private organizations and minor parties.
Voter registration in the United States
It has been argued that some registration requirements deter some people (especially disadvantaged people) from registering and therefore exercising their right to vote, resulting in a lower voter turnout. According to a 2012 study, 24% of the voting-eligible population in the United States are not registered to vote, equaling some 51 million U.S. citizens. While voters traditionally had to register at government offices by a certain period of time before an election, in the mid-1990s, the federal government made efforts to facilitate registering, in an attempt to increase turnout. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the "Motor Voter" law) now requires state governments to "either" provide uniform opt-in registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration, "or" to allow Election Day voter registration, where voters can register at polling places immediately prior to voting. In 2016, Oregon became the first state to make voter registration fully automatic (opt-out) when issuing driver licenses and ID cards, since followed by four more states. Political parties and other organizations sometimes hold "voter registration drives", that is, events to register new voters.
Private member's bill
Among the most notable of the successful bills was the "Commonwealth Electoral Bill 1924", which introduced compulsory voting for federal elections. This was introduced by Senator for Tasmania Herbert Payne of the Nationalist Party on 16 July 1924, passed by the Senate on 23 July, passed by the House of Representatives on 24 July - both times with little debate - and given Royal Assent on 31 July. Despite much public debate ever since on the issue of compulsory voting, the legislation has never been repealed.