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.
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.