Compulsory voting
, 22 countries were recorded as having compulsory voting. Of these, only 10 countries (additionally one Swiss canton and one Indian state) enforce it. Of the 30 member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 10 had forms of compulsory voting.
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.