Australia Has Mandatory Voting, and Election Days Are a Party
When Australians head to the polls on May 21, they won’t just be filling out ballots. Many voters will also grab a “democracy sausage” or a cupcake. At thousands of polling places around the country, volunteers will run barbecues and bake sales to raise money for their school or church group. They’re pretty much guaranteed a customer base because turnout at Australian elections is consistently between 90 and 95%. In a country where voting is mandatory, election days are a party and everyone’s invited.
Judith Brett, author of From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage, literally wrote the book on what is happening there. She puts the festival vibe down to a number of factors unique to Australia including mandatory voting, but also that, for more than a century, Australians have held elections on Saturday, “a day that people are out doing shopping, or visiting their friends, or going to sport,” she tells Teen Vogue.
Political strategizing brought compulsory voting to Australia. In 1915, the state of Queensland was the first place in the country to introduce the system. The conservative government thought the Labor Party was better at getting out the vote and wanted to level the playing field. Voting at the national level was made mandatory in 1924, and turnout has not fallen below 90% at any federal election since.
Compulsory voting has led to other reforms in Australia that distinguish it from countries like the United States. Decisions about how elections will be run are not in the hands of state and local officials; instead, an independent electoral commission decides the number and location of polling places. Voters can even cast their ballot at any polling booth in their home state, which has fueled the creation of a new election ritual: Citizens can now choose their polling place based on its offering of snacks thanks to a crowdsourced map.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/australia-mandatory-voting
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"Citizens can now choose their polling place based on its offering of snacks thanks to a crowdsourced map."
Where's the chocolate??? 
