Topic summary
Universal voting
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Compulsory voting.
Impact
A 2015 study of a Swiss canton where compulsory voting was enforced found that compulsory voting significantly increased electoral support for leftist policy positions in referendums by up to 20 percentage points. A 2008 study found that the effects of universal turnout in the United States would likely be small in national elections, but that universal turnout could matter in close elections, such as the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. In the United States, Democrats would most likely fare better under universal voting, as nonvoters are generally more Democratic, but due to the rarity of close elections in the United States, universal voting would change "very few election outcomes".