Always on the hunt for interesting but somewhat obscure little-known facts, I recently discovered that Belgians lead the world in election voting.
Yes, in tiny Belgium, according to a Pew Research Center report, about 90 percent of the voting age population and registered voters head to the polls each election to participate in democracy’s most sacred ritual.
How does the U.S. stack up against the land of waffles and chocolates? Of the 34 OECD countries studied, America ranked #31. Only Japan, Chile and Switzerland were less interested in voting. Turnout in America’s 2012 election was a meager 53.6 percent. That means just under 130 million people bothered to vote out of a voting-age population of around 241 million.
So much for American exceptionalism, especially when it comes to participating in democracy’s most important privilege.
Nipping at the heels of Belgium are Turkey, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, South Korea, Iceland, Norway, Israel and New Zealand, the remainder of the top 10, all above 70 percent on both measures.
Pew says that political scientists usually measure voter turnout by looking at votes cast as a percentage of eligible voters, but that yardstick is complicated by factors that can affect eligibility, like citizenship, imprisonment rules, residency requirements and other legal barriers. In practice, the one that counts the most is an estimate of the number of people in the voting-age population who actually go to the polls.
Looking under the hood a little more, we discover that Belgium and Turkey, the top two countries in the report, are among the 28 countries around the world where voting is compulsory. You have to vote or face a fine. Belgium has had compulsory voting on its books since 1892.
Of the top five countries in this report, Belgium, Turkey and Australia have compulsory voting laws, but Sweden and Denmark do not.
Those darned Scandinavians always seem to do the right things and end up in the top 10 of just about every list we come up with at A View Abroad. Who said social democracies won’t work?
