Compulsory Voting Laws: Australia, US and New Zealand

Australia has fined non-voters since 1924 and locals still call it a point of pride, even as turnout slips. The US and New Zealand, both voluntary, are far more conflicted about whether to follow suit

11 July 2026 · Researched via local sources using LikeLoc · 19 Australian sources · 18 US sources · 18 New Zealand sources

Live searches: Australia · United States · New Zealand

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The global-headline version of this debate is a simple stat: Australia forces you to vote, most of the English-speaking world doesn't, and Australia gets a turnout number everyone else envies. That much is true. What it misses is the emotional shape of the argument in each country — because only one of these three actually lives with the law, and it's the only one that talks about it with anything like pride.

I searched "compulsory voting laws and election turnout" through local sources in Australia, the United States, and New Zealand — all three in English, but with very different local conversations underneath. Australia came back Positive, Pride. The United States and New Zealand both came back Skeptical, Frustration — two countries that don't mandate voting, and whose local sources are noticeably uneasy about their own turnout numbers as a result.

The country that already has compulsory voting feels proud of it. The two countries debating whether to adopt it feel frustrated that they haven't solved turnout without it.

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A century-old law, still doing its job — mostly

I searched local Australian sources in English. Compulsory voting has been federal law since 1924, introduced specifically because turnout had plummeted to under 60% in the early 1920s. The fix worked almost immediately: turnout jumped to over 91% at the very next election in 1925, and the national average has hovered around 95% for most of the century since.

Local sources are candid, though, that the record is slipping. The 2022 federal election recorded turnout just under 90% — the lowest since the law was enacted — and the decline isn't evenly spread. The Northern Territory's Lingiari electorate, which covers a large Indigenous population in remote areas, recorded just 66.8% turnout in 2022, far below the national figure. Local commentary also points to a mechanical reason the law has lost some bite: the fine for not voting has been fixed at $20 since 1984, and inflation has quietly eroded whatever deterrent effect it once had.

Turnout jumped from under 60% to over 91% the moment compulsory voting became law in 1925 — and a century later, Australians still cite that jump as proof the system works.

Even so, public support for the law itself remains strong in the local sources. The debate isn't really "should we scrap this" — it's "how do we fix the parts that are fraying," specifically youth disengagement and the flat, inflation-eaten fine. Critics do raise the standard objection — that compelling people to vote can produce uninformed or resentful ballots — but that argument sits alongside the pride, not instead of it. The dominant local framing treats compulsory voting as a democratic strength worth defending and repairing, not a policy under serious threat.

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Everyone cites Australia's numbers. Nobody wants Australia's law.

I searched local American sources in English. The starting point for the US conversation is turnout itself: around 60% for presidential elections, dropping to roughly 40% for midterms — compared with turnout near 90% in countries with mandatory voting, Australia and Belgium named specifically. Local sources also cite the Austrian case, where compulsory voting lifted turnout from about 80% to 90% even with weak enforcement, and note that enforced penalties can add as much as 20 percentage points to turnout, versus only 8–10 points when penalties go unenforced.

That evidence doesn't translate into appetite for adopting the policy. Advocates argue compulsory voting could specifically help close participation gaps for lower-income and less-educated voters, who consistently turn out at lower rates in the US. But the counterarguments dominate the local tone: concerns about infringing on personal freedom, about compelling uninformed choices, and about a possible rise in invalid or protest ballots. Several state legislatures have introduced compulsory-voting bills in recent years; none has passed.

Presidential turnout hovers near 60%, midterms near 40% — against nearly 90% in countries with mandatory voting. Local sources cite the gap constantly, and reject the fix just as consistently.

Instead, the local consensus redirects the energy elsewhere: fix the barriers — voter ID requirements, registration friction — rather than mandate the outcome. It's a country that treats low turnout as a symptom to be addressed through access, not a compliance problem to be solved through law.

→ Explore the live United States search on LikeLoc

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Watching the neighbours, not following them

I searched local New Zealand sources in English. New Zealand's own turnout gives the debate its edge: general election turnout hasn't cleared 90% since 1984, the 2020 election came in at 82%, and local elections — a separate, lower-profile vote — can fall as low as 29% in some areas. Local sources draw the Australia comparison directly, noting turnout there reached 90.7% in the 2025 federal election, a gap New Zealand commentary treats as uncomfortable rather than abstract.

The local debate splits along familiar lines. Supporters argue compulsory voting would lift civic participation and make outcomes more representative of the whole population, not just the motivated segment that shows up. Opponents counter that mandating a vote infringes on the right to abstain — that someone who feels disconnected from politics, or distrustful of the candidates on offer, should be free to say so by not voting at all. Some local sources argue the current system, which requires enrolment but not voting, already strikes the right balance.

Local elections in New Zealand can draw turnout as low as 29% — a number local sources use to argue for better engagement, not a mandate.

Rather than legislating turnout, the local conversation leans toward softer interventions: voter education aimed at younger citizens, and small nudges like election-day reminder texts, which local sources say have already shown some promise. It's a country watching a neighbour's compulsory-voting numbers with real interest, but stopping well short of proposing the same law.

→ Explore the live New Zealand search on LikeLoc

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The law only looks obvious from the outside

Line the three up and the split isn't about whether high turnout matters — all three local conversations agree it does. It's about who has actually had to live with the trade-off. Australia's local sources have a century of data to point to, so their doubts are about maintenance: a fine that hasn't kept pace with inflation, and pockets of the country the law reaches less effectively than it used to. The United States and New Zealand have no such law to defend, so their doubts are more fundamental — about freedom, about the meaning of an uninformed vote, about whether mandating participation is a fix or a workaround for a problem access reform should solve instead.

Australia's complaint about compulsory voting is that the penalty is too small. America's and New Zealand's complaint is that the penalty shouldn't exist at all.

No global ranking of "countries with the best voter turnout" captures that difference in kind. It takes reading the local argument in each place to see that Australia isn't defending compulsory voting in the abstract — it's defending a specific, imperfect, century-old system it has already built its democracy around. The other two are still deciding whether they'd want to build one at all.

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Key data at a glance

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Selected sources

Australia — 19 local sources searched

• Compulsory enrolment and voting | State Library of New South Wales — "Compulsory Enrolment and Voting" (public library legal-reference guide)
• Compulsory voting in Australia - Australian Electoral Commission — "Compulsory Voting in Australia" (official electoral commission explainer)
• Chapter 8 — Voluntary and compulsory voting – Parliament of Australia — "Voluntary and Compulsory Voting" (parliamentary inquiry report chapter)
• Voter turnout in the 2022 federal election hit a new low, threatening our democratic tradition - The Australia Institute — "Voter Turnout in the 2022 Federal Election Hit a New Low, Threatening Our Democratic Tradition" (progressive think-tank commentary)
• Commonwealth Electoral Act 1924 - Parliamentary Education Office — "Commonwealth Electoral Act 1924" (official history of the founding legislation)
• Australia's experience of compulsory voting — and what it tells us about democratic fragility and resilience - ABC Religion & Ethics — "Australia's Experience of Compulsory Voting" (public broadcaster analysis essay)

United States — 18 local sources searched

• [PDF] Compulsory Voting, Turnout, and Government Spending - NBER — "Compulsory Voting, Turnout, and Government Spending" (National Bureau of Economic Research working paper)
• Enforcement key to mandatory voting — "Enforcement Key to Mandatory Voting" (University of Georgia research news)
• Compulsory Voting - Center for Effective Government — "Compulsory Voting" (University of Chicago policy primer)
• What Other Countries Can Teach Us About Turnout — "What Other Countries Can Teach Us About Turnout" (Responsive Government Center research brief)
• The Paradox of Compulsory Voting — "The Paradox of Compulsory Voting" (Institute for Research on Public Policy analysis)
• Forcing People to Vote Doesn't Change the Outcome | Chicago Booth Review — "Forcing People to Vote Doesn't Change the Outcome" (business school research review)

New Zealand — 18 local sources searched

• Compulsory voting has boosted turnout in Australia – is it time NZ tried it? | RNZ — "Compulsory Voting Has Boosted Turnout in Australia — Is It Time NZ Tried It?" (public broadcaster news feature)
• [PDF] Interim report - Citizen Space — "Independent Electoral Review — Interim Report" (government electoral review consultation document)
• Another local election, another low turnout? Syncing local and general elections could be the answer | Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington — "Another Local Election, Another Low Turnout?" (university news commentary)
• [PDF] Increasing Voter Turnout Using Behavioural Insights — "Increasing Voter Turnout Using Behavioural Insights" (Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet policy report)
• [PDF] 2026 Media Kit - Elections NZ — "2026 Media Kit" (Electoral Commission press resource)

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Methodology

All three searches were run on the same day (11 July 2026) using LikeLoc, which queries each country's local internet and returns AI-summarised results in English. The query was identical across all three countries: "compulsory voting laws and election turnout". All three were retrieved and searched in English. Australia returned 19 sources, the United States returned 18, and New Zealand returned 18. All figures cited come directly from those local sources — no statistics were invented or inferred.