Side by Side: What Does It Cost Not to Vote?

On Tuesday Americans elect a new House of Representatives, and none of them owes a cent for skipping it. One measure for each country, taken from its electoral authority, its law or a report of the law: the fine for a first unexcused absence from a national election, in local currency, and whether anyone is known to collect it.

Australia

Twenty dollars. The Australian Electoral Commission writes to anyone marked absent and closes the matter if the person voted after all, gives a “valid and sufficient reason,” or pays “the $20 administrative penalty.” Canberra posts the bill to the voter’s door and accepts a good excuse as legal tender.

Belgium

Forty to eighty euros. Before the June 2024 federal election L’Avenir reported a fine of 40 to 80 euros for a first unjustified absence, and 80 to 200 euros for repeat offenders. International IDEA adds that a Belgian who misses at least four elections within 15 years is disenfranchised. Brussels cures the habitual non-voter by making sure he can no longer fail to vote.

Brazil

R$3.51 a round. The Superior Electoral Court says a voter whose absence is not accepted must “pagar a multa de R$ 3,51 por turno,” and this year’s general election had two rounds, on 4 and 25 October, so missing both costs R$7.02. Three missed elections without paying or justifying cancels the voter’s registration. Brasília is the one capital here that holds a run-off for abstainers: stay home twice and the fine doubles.

Egypt

Up to 500 Egyptian pounds. Gulf News reported that voters who skipped the August 2020 Senate election were liable under the Political Rights Practice Law to “a fine of maximum LE500,” and that more than 53 million had stayed away. International IDEA lists the sanction as not enforced. Collected in full, that comes to 26.5 billion pounds; Cairo chose to leave it in the voters’ pockets, the most popular fiscal policy on this list.

India

Nothing, nationally; India is absent from International IDEA’s list of countries with compulsory voting laws. Gujarat tried it for local bodies, with a fine of “Rs 100” and the label “defaulter voter,” until the High Court stayed the Act on 21 August 2015, holding that the right to vote “itself provides right to refrain from voting.” The court found that not voting is one way of using the vote, which is also how most parliaments describe a walkout.

United States

Nothing. USA.gov states that “no one is required by law to vote in any local, state, or presidential election.” International IDEA notes that Massachusetts keeps a constitutional provision allowing compulsory voting, though no statute was ever passed to use it. The Commonwealth holds the power to make its citizens turn up and has never once exercised it, which makes it the most committed abstainer in the country.

Verdict

Canberra sets a modest price and actually sends the letter; Brussels has the steepest ladder and a ban at the top of it; Brasília charges by the round. Cairo has written a fine it does not collect, Gandhinagar one a court would not let it collect, and Washington none at all. Not one of them has yet tried the other remedy, which is a better ballot.