Menschen zum Wählen zu zwingen macht sie nicht zu engagierteren Bürgern, heißt es in einer belgischen Studie. Durch die Abschaffung der Strafen für die Nichtwahl wird die Wahlbeteiligung drastisch reduziert, das politische Engagement und die demokratische Einstellung der Bevölkerung bleiben jedoch weitgehend unverändert.

**Forcing people to vote doesn’t make them more engaged citizens, study finds**

A recent study published in *Public Opinion Quarterly* provides evidence that requiring citizens to vote does not automatically make them more interested in politics or more supportive of democracy. The research suggests that removing penalties for not voting drastically reduces electoral participation but leaves a population’s political engagement and democratic attitudes largely unchanged.

Compulsory voting is a system where eligible citizens are legally mandated to participate in elections. In many of the roughly 25 countries that use this system, failing to cast a ballot can result in a fine or other penalties. Proponents of mandatory voting often argue that forcing people to the polls encourages them to learn about political issues and fosters a sense of civic duty.

https://academic.oup.com/poq/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/poq/nfag034/8705244

Interesting study but way too short a time period to actually determine true impact. You can’t see long term effects when compulsory voting was only removed 2 years ago. You have a populace that came of age with the requirement.  What happens to the youth 10 years down the line that were never compelled to vote?

If citizens are penalized for not voting it is the job of the government to ensure voting is accessible, which I think is the biggest benefit of compulsory voting. Low effort participants will never change, but having the government ensure that everyone can vote without any financial repercussion (I contrast Australia with weekend elections that almost never have a line longer than 5 mins/you can vote early if you have to work that day v USA where elections are on Tuesdays and people line up for hours) means working class people can be represented.

Put the onus on the two parties to get ppl to vote and make it so that a result is not official until more than half of the eligible voters actually vote. ALL ELECTIONS.

Forcing someone to do something doesnt make them care about it. If someone doesnt care, they may just puck an option at random or something. Theyll want to get it over with. Its worse to force them if they dont care about the results.

Voting should be hard and require some effort. People would not otherwise bother to vote, will pick a candidate at semi random.

give it time and see if they get more involved now that they have to vote.

Penalties aren’t the way. Make it a holiday with plenty of voting sites so people can vote easily and then enjoy their day. You can even add incentives such as it’s a paod day off if you show proof of voting.

voting should still be mandatory and campaign promises should be legally binding with huge penalties if parties / candidates lied to the population

What counts as an engaged citizen in this study? I thought the point was to get people to vote?

I mean, forcing people to participate in government rituals is inherently authoritarian so it kind of proves itself without any research.