It is commonly said that voting in a democracy is a civic duty. Some countries take this one step further and turn that duty into a legal obligation through mandatory voting. In total, 26 countries follow this model, with different penalties for those who do not vote and varying degrees of enforcement. Eleven of them are in Latin America—reason enough to take a closer look at compulsory voting.
Types of voting in Latin America
Different models of electoral participation coexist in Latin America. There are three main types of voting. The first is voting without obligation or sanction, adopted by countries such as Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, where suffrage is voluntary and depends on citizens’ civic engagement.
Second, there is voting with an obligation but without effective sanctions—known as symbolic voting—present in Mexico, Honduras, and Costa Rica, where the law states that voting is mandatory, but lacks mechanisms for enforcement or punishment.
Finally, there is voting with both obligation and sanctions, which is divided into two categories: Voting with moderate sanctions, which are applied in Ecuador and Paraguay, where non-compliance is punished with small fines. And voting with strict sanctions, used in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Peru, where unjustified absence may result in fines or administrative restrictions.
As for fines, amounts vary widely between countries. They range from symbolic penalties of just R$3.50 (≈ USD 0.60) in Brazil, to sums exceeding 3,600 Uruguayan pesos (≈ USD 90) in Uruguay. In Argentina, fines range from 50 to 500 pesos (≈ USD 0.05–0.50), while in Peru they are around S/25.75 (≈ USD 6.80), and in Bolivia can reach up to 900 bolivianos (≈ USD 130). In Chile—the most recent country to adopt sanctions—the fines range from USD 35 to USD 110. These amounts may also depend on factors such as the voter’s professional status, repeat offenses, or the type of election.
Advantages of mandatory voting
Legally mandatory voting increases representativeness, since when more people participate, results are more legitimate. It also reinforces the philosophical principle of political equality among citizens and prevents the “free-rider” phenomenon—benefiting from collective effort without contributing.
Various studies show that when voting is seen as a civic duty, people tend to be better informed before going to the polls. Mandatory voting also signals the constitutive importance of elections within democracy and contributes to governmental stability.
Moreover, high turnout reduces the impact of small but highly mobilized groups on final results and lowers the cost of electoral campaigns, limiting the influence of private financing on parties and candidates. Finally, to ensure freedom of choice, ballots could include the option of an explicit abstention, allowing voters to register their disagreement with the available political alternatives.
Are there disadvantages?
Mandatory voting also has drawbacks. First, it restricts the individual freedom to express discontent through abstention, which can be a legitimate form of rejecting a political system that does not meet citizens’ expectations. It also raises the question of whether people who have the right to vote also have the right not to vote within a system of justice.
Another controversy involves the state’s capacity to manage fines and monitor participation, which requires bureaucratic infrastructure and generates costs.
The reality in Latin America
In Latin America, electoral participation is experiencing a downward trend that highlights the limits of mandatory voting as a tool for democratic strengthening. Although most countries in the region maintain mandatory voting systems, turnout levels have steadily declined over the last two decades. Factors such as distrust of political parties, disillusionment with institutions, and political fragmentation partly explain this decline.
Argentina’s case—where turnout reached its lowest level since 1983 despite mandatory voting—illustrates this crisis of civic engagement. Even countries like Peru (2021: 70%), which combine mandatory voting with sanctions, show relatively low participation under the same rules.
In contrast, Uruguay (2021: 90%) shows much higher rates, demonstrating that participation depends not only on the legal framework, but also on trust in the system and the civic culture that sustains it. Even so, despite the downward trend, participation in Latin America remains significantly higher than in many European democracies.
*Machine translation, proofread by Ricardo Aceves.
Autor
Master's student in International Affairs with a focus on European Governance at the Hertie School in Berlin. Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Computer Science from the Technical University of Darmstadt. Intern at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Montevideo.
Undergraduate student in European Studies at the University of Passau, specializing in Political Science and Spanish Language and Literature. Intern at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Montevideo.
