Compulsory voting
Compulsory voting is an effect of laws which require eligible citizens to register and vote in elections, and may impose penalties on those who fail to do so. , 22 countries provide for compulsory voting, and 11 democracies — about 5% of all United Nations members — enforce it.
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.