Compulsory voting
Countries that have compulsory voting by law but do not enforce it:Although voting in a country may be compulsory, penalties for failing to vote are not always strictly enforced. In Australia and Brazil, providing a legitimate reason for not voting (such as illness) is accepted. In Argentina, those who were ill on voting day are excused by requesting a doctor to prove their condition; those over away from their voting place are also excused by asking for a certificate at a police station near where they are. Belgian voters can vote in an embassy if they are abroad or can empower another voter to cast the vote in their name; the voter must give a "permission to vote" and carry a copy of the eID card and their own on the actual elections.
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.