Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Do some countries have compulsory voting?
Some countries do not allow their citizens to renounce their citizenship or only if the citizenship was acquired by birth there to non-citizen parents. In Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay, voting is compulsory for citizens. In Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Venezuela, military service is mandatory.
Youth suffrage, or children's suffrage, is the right of youth to vote and forms part of the broader youth rights movement. Until recently Iran had a voting age of 15; Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua have a voting age of 16; and Indonesia, East Timor, Sudan, and Seychelles have a voting age of 17.
The voting process has two steps. An eligible voter - a U.S. citizen over the age of 18 - must first register to vote and then commit the act of voting. The voting process is regulated by each state individually and therefore varies from state to state.
The process of registering to vote is different depending on the state. Pre-registration is available to youth under the age of 18 in 20 states and Washington D.C. Potential voters may also register on Election Day - or on the day on which they vote early - in 10 states and Washington D.C. This may be done at the polling place or at an election official's office. Residents of the 40 states which do not allow same day registration require potential voters to register by a deadline, typically from eight to 30 days out from the election. Over half of the states in the U.S. offer some sort or online voter registration. This consists of the same process as a paper registration form, only it is digital on the internet and send to election officials to review over the web. This process was first introduced in Arizona in 2002. 
There are different regulations on the time and avenue through which a citizen can vote. Early voting is available in 33 states and Washington D.C. This must be done in person at a designated polling place. Early voting period lengths vary from state to state. If a potential voter is not able to vote in person on Election Day or during the early voting period, they may request an absentee ballot. In 20 states, an excuse must be filed to receive the absentee ballot. In 27 states and Washington D.C., a voter may acquire an absentee ballot without an excuse. In Washington, Oregon and Colorado all voting is done through the mail. A ballot is mailed to the voters residence and after the voter fills it out, he/she may mail it back. No in person polls are conducted. Otherwise, the typical voting period is twelve hours on a weekday at which time voters must go to the polls in person and cast their votes.
The EU is divided between unicameral (single chamber) and bicameral (dual chamber) parliaments, with 15 unicameral national parliaments and 13 bicameral parliaments. The prime minister and government are usually directly accountable to the directly elected lower house and require its support to stay in office—the exception being Cyprus with its presidential system. Upper houses are composed differently in different member states: it can be directly elected like the Polish senate, indirectly elected, for example, by regional legislatures like the Federal Council of Austria, unelected, but representing certain interest groups like the National Council of Slovenia, unelected (though by and large appointed by elected officials) as a remnant of a non-democratic political system in earlier times (as in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom). Most (though not all) elections in the EU use some form of proportional representation. The most common type of proportional representation is the party-list system.
England was one of the first places in the world to grant voting rights to women citizens universally and regardless of marital status, which it did by passage of the 1918 Representation of the People Act that gave voting rights to women aged 30 years and over who met a property qualification (equal voting rights with men was achieved a decade later under the Equal Franchise Act 1928, which permitted all women aged 21 and over to vote). Several centuries earlier, some of its colonies in North America, including New Jersey Colony by its constitution, had granted voting rights to women who could meet the same property requirements men had to meet; common laws of Coverture requiring a married woman's property to be held by her husband meant married women typically could not qualify.
Under the latest rules, election required the votes of two thirds of those voting, in this case 54. No ballots were taken on the first day, then two each morning and two each afternoon. Because there had been confusion at the last conclave in 1958 over the color of the smoke used to indicate whether a pope had been elected, the smoke would be supplemented with electric lights.
In 1986, the Compulsory Education Law mandated that every child is given the right to nine years of free public education: six years of elementary school and three years of secondary school.
In some countries including England, Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and New Zealand police do not carry firearms unless the situation is expected to involve gunfire from the opposing force. A survey conducted in Great Britain in 2004 found that 47% of citizens supported arming all police while 48% were opposed to the idea.
Voluntary euthanasia was legalized in the Netherlands (in 2002), Belgium (in 2002), Luxembourg (in 2008), and Canada (in 2016). Assisted suicide, where the patient has to take the final action themselves (unlike voluntary euthanasia), is legal in Canada, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and parts of the United States. In the United States there are assisted dying laws restricted to terminally ill adults in Oregon, Montana, Washington, Vermont, Hawaii, California, Colorado and Washington D.C. The laws require that the patient's attending physician certify mental competence. Oregon was the first United States state to legalize assisted suicide, which was achieved through popular vote. The Act was a citizens' initiative passed twice by Oregon voters. The first time was in a general election in November 1994 when it passed by a margin of 51% to 49%. An injunction delayed implementation of the Act until it was lifted on October 27, 1997. In November 1997, a measure was placed on the general election ballot to repeal the Act. Voters chose to retain the Act by a margin of 60% to 40%.
The youth vote in the United States is a political term used to describe 18- to 24-year-olds and their voting habits. Many policy areas specifically affect the youth of the United States, such as education issues and the juvenile justice system. The general trend in voter turnout for American elections has been decreasing for all age groups, but "young people's participation has taken the biggest nosedive". This low youth turnout is part of the generational trend of voting activity. Young people have the lowest turnout, though as the individual ages, turnout increases to a peak at the age of 50 and then falls again. 
Ever since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972, youth have been under represented at the polls. In 1976, one of the first elections in which 18-year-olds were able to vote, 18-24 year-olds made up 18 percent of all eligible voters in America, but only 13 percent actually voted - an under-representation of one-third. In the next election in 1978, youth were under-represented by 50 percent. "Seven out of ten young people…did not vote in the 1996 presidential election… 20 percent below the general turnout". In 1998, out of the 13 percent of eligible youth voters in America, only five percent voted. During the competitive presidential race of 2000, 36 percent of youth turned out to vote and in 2004, the "banner year in the history of youth voting," 47 percent of the American youth voted. Recently, in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, the number of youth voters tripled and even quadrupled in some states compared to the 2004 elections.
The Tuesday following the first Monday in November has been fixed as the day for holding federal elections, called the Election Day. In 48 states and Washington, D.C., the "winner-takes-all method" is used (electors selected as a single bloc). Maine and Nebraska use the "congressional district method", selecting one elector within each congressional district by popular vote and selecting the remaining two electors by a statewide popular vote. This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and in Nebraska since 1996.
In the years before World War I, women in Norway (1913) also won the right to vote, as did women in the remaining Australian states. Denmark granted women's suffrage in 1915. Near the end of the war, Canada, Russia, Germany, and Poland also recognized women's right to vote. The Representation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote, Dutch women in 1919, and American women won the vote on 26 August 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment (the Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Irish women won the same voting rights as men in the Irish Free State constitution, 1922. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. Suffrage of Turkish women introduced in 1930 for local elections and in 1934 for national elections.
Recent decades have seen increasing concern over the fact that youth voting turnout is consistently lower than turnout among older generations. Several programs to increase the rates of voting among young people—such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" (founded in 1990) and the "Vote or Die" initiative (starting in 2012)—may have marginally increased turnouts of those between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote. However, the "Stanford Social Innovation Review" found no evidence of a decline in youth voter turnout. In fact, they argue that "Millennials are turning out at similar rates to the previous two generations when they face their first elections."
In most legal systems, one becomes designated as an adult on a particular birthday (usually between 12 and 21), and reaching age-specific milestones confers particular rights and responsibilities. At certain ages, one may become eligible to leave full-time education, become subject to military conscription or to enlist in the military, to consent to sexual intercourse, to marry, to marry without parental consent, to vote, to run for elected office, to legally purchase (or consume) alcohol and tobacco products, to purchase lottery tickets, or to obtain a driver's licence. The age of majority is the age when minors cease to legally be considered children and assume control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thereby terminating the legal control and legal responsibilities of their parents or guardians over and for them. Most countries set the age of majority at 18, though it varies by jurisdiction.
Soviet Russia (1919), Iceland (1935) and Sweden (1938) were among the first countries to legalize certain or all forms of abortion. In 1935 Nazi Germany, a law was passed permitting abortions for those deemed "hereditarily ill", while women considered of German stock were specifically prohibited from having abortions. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, abortion was legalized in a greater number of countries.
With the election looming, Sisi publicly called for record voter participation in an effort to boost the election's legitimacy. "Showing signs of panic," according to "Reuters", the interim government declared the second day of voting, a Tuesday, to be a public holiday, and extended voting until 10:00PM. However, turnout was lower than expected, with lines outside polling stations short, and in some cases no voters visible at all. By the end of the day, the elections committee decided to extend voting to a third day, the 28 of May. The Justice ministry declared that Egyptians who did not vote would be fined, and waived train fares to try to increase participation. Government-backed media also admonished the public for not voting, and one TV commentator called those not voting "traitors, traitors, traitors."
Many of the countries from which the immigrants had come, became independent of the UK after 1948 and people living there became citizens of those countries. Legislative measures in the 60s and early 70s limited the rights of citizens of these former colonies, now members of the Commonwealth, to come to or work in the UK. Anyone who had arrived in the UK from a Commonwealth country before 1973 was granted an automatic right permanently to remain, unless they left the UK for more than two years. Since the right was automatic, many people in this category were never given, or asked to provide, documentary evidence of their right to remain at the time or over the next forty years, during which, many continued to live and work in the UK, believing themselves to be British.
Originally every independent country in the Commonwealth was a Dominion with the British monarch as head of state. The 1949 London Declaration prior to India becoming a republic allowed countries with a different head of state to join or remain in the Commonwealth, but only by unanimous consent of the other members. The governments of Pakistan (in 1956) and, later, Ghana (in 1960) availed themselves of this principle, and the National Party had not ruled out South Africa's continued membership of Commonwealth were there a vote in favour of a republic.
According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. As a member of the "Big 5", Germany automatically qualified to compete in the final on 14 May 2016. In addition to their participation in the final, Germany is also required to broadcast and vote in one of the two semi-finals. This would have been regularly decided via a draw held during the semi-final allocation draw on 25 January 2016, however, prior to the draw, ARD requested of the European Broadcasting Union that Germany be allowed to broadcast and vote in the second semi-final on 12 May 2016, which was approved by the contest's Reference Group.
Common law is currently in practice in Ireland, most of the United Kingdom (England and Wales and Northern Ireland), Australia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, India (excluding Goa), Pakistan, South Africa, Canada (excluding Quebec), Hong Kong, the United States (on a state level excluding Louisiana), and many other places. In addition to these countries, several others have adapted the common law system into a mixed system. For example, Nigeria operates largely on a common law system, but incorporates religious law.
To be elected speaker a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes cast, as opposed to an absolute majority of the full membership of the Housepresently 218 votes, in a House of 435. There have only been a few instances during the past century where a person received a majority of the votes cast, and thus won the election, while failing to obtain a majority of the full membership. It happened most recently in 2015 (114th Congress), when John Boehner was elected with 216 votes (as opposed to 218). Such a variation in the number of votes necessary to win a given election might arise due to vacancies, absentees, or members being present but not voting. If no candidate wins a majority of the "votes cast for a person by name," then the roll call is repeated until a speaker is elected. Multiple roll calls have been necessary only 14 times (out of 125 speakership elections) since 1789; and not since 1923 (68th Congress), when a closely divided House needed nine ballots to elect Frederick H. Gillett speaker. Upon winning election the new Speaker is immediately sworn in by the Dean of the United States House of Representatives, the chamber's longest-serving member.
Compulsory voting has also been promoted for its collective benefits. It becomes difficult for coercion to be used to prevent disadvantaged people (the old, illiterate or disabled) to vote, and for obstacles to be put in the way of classes of individuals (ethnic/coloured; either registration requirements or placement of voting booths) as often happens under other voting systems. The compulsion requirement also needs to be kept in proportion: jury duty and compulsory military service are vastly more onerous citizen's compulsions than attending a local voting booth once every few years. Perhaps the most compelling reason to use a system of compulsory voting is a simple matter of logistics, that is, to facilitate the smooth and orderly process of an election. Every year in countries that do not have compulsory voting election officials have to guess at the numbers of voters who might turn out – this often depends on the vagaries of the weather. Often voters are disenfranchised in those countries when voting officials err and not enough voting booths are provided. Long queues can result with voters being turned away at the close of polling not having had their chance to exercise their democratic right to vote.
A 2005 Inter-American Development Bank working paper purported to show that there was a correlation between compulsory voting, when enforced strictly, and improved income distribution, as measured by the Gini coefficient and the bottom income quintiles of the population. However, a more recent Conference Board of Canada study on World income inequality — also relying on the Gini index — shows that income inequality is lowest in the Scandinavian countries, where compulsory voting has never existed, while Australia, and to a lesser extent Belgium, which strictly enforces their compulsory voting legislation, have a higher income inequality level than a number of other Western countries, such as Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, where compulsory voting does not exist.
Other perceived advantages to compulsory voting are the stimulation of broader interest politics, as a sort of civil education and political stimulation, which creates a better informed population, although no studies have been undertaken to demonstrate that the populations of Belgium or Australia for instance, where compulsory voting has long existed, are better informed and more politically aware than the populations of New Zealand, France, Canada or the Scandinavian countries, where voting has never been compulsory. It is also argued that since campaign funds are not needed to goad voters to the polls, the role of money in politics decreases. With non-compulsory voting, the ability of a political machine to get out the vote of its supporters may influence the outcome. High levels of participation decreases the risk of political instability created by crises or charismatic but sectionally focused demagogues.
Some do not support the idea of voters being compelled to vote for candidates they have no interest in or knowledge of. Others may be well-informed, but have no preference for any particular candidate, or may have no wish to give support to the incumbent political system. In compulsory voting areas, such people often vote at random simply to fulfill legal requirements: the so-called donkey vote may account for sufficient percentage which has the potential to change the result in close races. (Robson rotation can be used to distribute the donkey vote equally among all candidates, however.) Similarly, citizens may vote with a complete absence of knowledge of any of the candidates or deliberately skew their ballot to slow the polling process and disrupt the election, or vote for frivolous or jokey candidates. Such arguments are frequently aired in Brazil, where opposition to compulsory voting has increased from 43% in 2008 to 61% in 2014 and where two out of ten voters have abstained from voting in recent elections.