austria had compulsive voting til i think 1995 or so. This didnt mean u had to actually vote (u could turn in an empty vote, or u could vote for everyone), but u had to go to the voting office and sign, that u were there.
Which meant, more than 80 % went voting. If the mayor of the city / village / town u lived in didnt like u or your family, he could be evil and send u a organmandatverfügung, wich means having to pay some money, similar a ticket for wrong parking. so if u didnt vote and had bad luck / the guy at the town authority had a bad day , there was the possibility to get punished for not voting. If u refused to pay, u could theoretically even get into prison.
Rights always come with obligations. No right has been gained historically without being tied to a duty. Former it was the kings only right and duty to decide about war and peace, taxes, conscription and so on, and now the rights, and therefore the responsibility have gone to every single person. So the right to vote comes nowadays from beeing an adult human (even females may vote since 100 years), and all those ancient obligations and duties tied to this right (beeing a tax payer, being able to read and write, membership to a certain social layer / council /having at least 100000 acres land and so on) have lost their importance, and nowadays people often think that rights are free.
rights are privileges that historically were not given to common people, because they couldnt be trusted
a make the right decisions and
b) deal with the consequences,
whereas a king was blessed and wanted from god by birth (divine right), which justifies everything he does. On US Dollar there is still a reminiscence to the divine right, it says "In God we trust".
So if u refer to the old deal " no king who does the thinking and ruling for us, we rule ourselves and take responsibility for ourself", it would be ok to have compulsatory voting. It surely will help to get people out of their beds on vote days.
I cannot understand those who state no to this topic because of thinking the rights are for free.
Actually loads of people fought in the process of achieving this rights, and any true democrat or republican (not parties, meant the real sense of the word) should be proud of this achievement.
Rights that are not used tend to fall back to those who want to abuse it.