General Discussion

Here it’s a small fine

People will call it a cashgrab, that will mostly affect poor people(since the rich people both vote and also dont care about small fines).

it’s also a day off

Greek elections are always on Sunday and people can be given a day off if their voting location is far away(especially back in the day, when moving your voting location was hard).

Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen

I have been shitting on Greece for my entire life, but it aint cool when non greeks do it. Yes, Greece is fucked but i wouldnt really call it a failed state. It is a shithole but only greeks get to call it a shithole. It also relatively shitholey, in comparison to western european countries.

It just happens to be the worst "western" country. And yes, it is in the East, but the West/East thing was a Cold War thing and Greece was with the "West". Nowadays, many "eastern european" countries have reached and surpassed Greece.

In any case, take a look at the wikipedia map, which countries have compulsory voting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

If you exclude Australia, all other countries are shitholes. And i am sure australians will be the first to tell you that Australia is also a shithole and politically fucked.

As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.

It doesnt. If anything, it might do exactly the opposite. When a greek neonazi party was popular, a lot of "apolitic" greeks supported it not because they supported neonazism but because "fuck the system, at least they will go in and smash some heads". When clueless people are forced to vote, they might be clueless about what they are voting.

America's issue is the first past the post, winner takes all system. If the US had a more representative system, that allowed third parties and coalitions(like almost all other democratic countries have), things would have been better.

it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.

thoughts on Selb and Lachat, 2009?:

In particular, the analyses suggest that CV compels a substantial share of uninterested and less knowledgeable voters to the polls. These voters, in turn, cast votes that are clearly less consistent with their own political preferences than those of the more informed and motivated voluntary voters. Claims that CV promotes equal representation of political interests are therefore questionable.