Compulsory voting: what do Belgian parties propose?

Is voting compulsory everywhere in Belgium in 2026?

No, not quite anymore. In 2026, voting remains compulsory for the federal, regional and European elections across the country, and for municipal and provincial elections in Wallonia and Brussels. But Flanders has scrapped the obligation for its municipal and provincial polls, applied for the first time on 13 October 2024.

Belgium has practised compulsory voting since 1893. The principle is simple: a registered voter receives a summons and must show up at the polling station, even if they can cast a blank vote. This rule was long a shared given, to the point of producing some of the highest turnout rates in Europe. The novelty of the decade is that one of the three main levels — the Flemish Region, for its local elections only — has broken with that tradition, opening a debate that now runs through every party.

Concretely, a Flemish voter in 2024 could therefore be required to vote for the federal Parliament and the Region, but free to stay home for their municipality. This two-speed status, specific to Flanders, serves as a full-scale laboratory: for the first time it gives a measured figure of what ending the obligation actually changes, and it feeds the arguments of both camps.

How to read these positions without taking sides?

Each party gets a sign per option here: a green + when it clearly defends that lever, an amber ~ for an intermediate or conditional stance, a red − when it opposes it. This system replaces stars or scores out of five, which would suggest a moral ranking.

The key point: no column designates a "good" party. A party marked with a + on keeping the obligation is logically marked with a − on moving to optional voting, and vice versa. The two options answer different values — equality of participation for one, individual freedom for the other — defended by different voters. Reading the table means spotting the lever each party favours, not handing out a prize for virtue.

For example, the PS gets a + on keeping the obligation and a − on optional voting, which it deems unequal. The N-VA has the opposite profile. Neither is "in the lead": they do not defend the same idea of democracy.

What has happened in Flanders since compulsory voting ended?

Turnout dropped sharply. At the Flemish municipal elections of 13 October 2024, the first without the obligation, turnout fell on average to around 65%, whereas previous polls exceeded 90%. In several municipalities, abstention approached half the electorate.

This drop surprised some observers, because pre-election polls stayed high: a few weeks before the vote, about 74% of Flemings said they would "certainly" vote. The gap between stated intention and actual behaviour illustrates a known effect: without a binding summons, a share of voters postpone, forget or give up, especially when the local stakes feel distant.

On the facts, the local examples speak for themselves. In Kortrijk and Genk, about 40% of voters stayed home; municipalities such as Grimbergen or De Panne fell to around 57% turnout. The analyses relayed by the press and universities add a social nuance: those who stop voting are on average younger, less educated and on lower incomes, which skews the real electorate. It is precisely this figure that both camps read in opposite ways.

Why do some parties want to keep compulsory voting?

Because they see it as a guarantee of democratic equality. The PS, Ecolo, Groen, the PTB·PVDA, Vooruit and Les Engagés defend keeping the obligation: when everyone votes, the elected assembly reflects the whole population, not just the most motivated or best-off citizens.

The central argument is social. Studies on the end of the obligation, in Flanders and abroad, show that voluntary abstention affects working-class neighbourhoods, young people and people of immigrant origin more. Making voting optional would, according to this camp, mechanically give more weight to well-off, older voters, and deepen a bias that the obligation corrects. Added to this is an argument of legitimacy: an official elected on 90% turnout has a more incontestable mandate than one chosen by half the registered voters.

The criticism, voiced by supporters of optional voting, is twofold: compelling people to vote does not create an informed vote, and forced participation artificially inflates blank, spoilt or protest votes. Defenders of the obligation reply that a blank vote is still a choice expressed, and that a high turnout is better than a genuine but socially unbalanced participation. The debate has no purely technical answer: it pits two hierarchies of values against each other.

Why do other parties want optional voting?

Because they see voting as a right, not an imposed duty. The N-VA, the Open VLD and the CD&V carried or backed abolishing the obligation in Flanders, and the MR wrote it into its programme on the French-speaking side. For them, compelling a citizen to go to the polls infringes individual freedom.

The underlying argument is liberal and pedagogical. A chosen vote, its defenders say, would have more value than one wrested by force: those who turn out freely inform themselves more and genuinely engage, whereas the compelled voter may vote at random or out of irritation. Several Flemish leaders add that Belgium is an exception in Europe, where almost all democracies practise optional voting without their legitimacy being questioned.

The criticism, voiced by the left and the French-speaking centre, is that the freedom invoked mainly benefits those who already vote, and that the drop in turnout seen in Flanders in 2024 is anything but anecdotal. Conversely, supporters of optional voting accept that decline: for them, lower but voluntary participation is preferable to a high figure obtained under compulsion. Here again, the same fact — the fall in the Flemish rate — is read as a failure by some and as a mere return to normal by others.

Where do the Vlaams Belang and the French-speaking line stand?

The Vlaams Belang holds a less clear-cut position on the principle, hence its double ~. The party has not made abolishing the obligation a central axis of its message, and its interest in the question depends mainly on its assumed effect on mobilising its own, highly motivated, electorate. Its stance is therefore more about electoral calculation than an asserted doctrine on the duty to vote.

The French-speaking case is worth pausing on, because it shows the dividing line is not only linguistic. Most French-speaking parties — PS, Ecolo, Les Engagés, joined by DéFI — defend keeping the obligation. But the MR, though French-speaking, stands apart by arguing for optional voting, aligned with the Flemish liberals of the Open VLD. On this issue, the ideological family — liberal, social, green — weighs as much as regional belonging.

This configuration explains why the question makes no headway at federal level. Changing the obligation for the federal elections would require a majority that supporters of optional voting do not reach on their own, and the parties attached to keeping it see it as a democratic red line. The debate therefore remains, for now, confined to the regional level, where Flanders was able to decide without the agreement of the French-speakers.

Compulsory or optional voting: what do the actions say?

Beyond the speeches, only one major act has been taken: Flanders abolished the obligation for its municipal and provincial elections, a decision made in 2021 and applied in October 2024. Neither Wallonia, nor the Brussels Region, nor the federal level followed; the obligation remains the rule there, and no majority has emerged to lift it.

Comparing promises with actions is the best antidote to electoral marketing. A party can praise "voter freedom" or "democratic equality" without ever having to decide, as long as the balance of power does not allow it. In Flanders, the coalition with the capacity to act did so; elsewhere, attachment to keeping the obligation held. The 2024 figure then becomes the first piece of evidence each camp will file in the case at the next elections.

To dig deeper, the comparator lets you place two parties side by side, the ranking sums up positions theme by theme, and the quiz starts from your priorities rather than a programme. The institutions section places this question in the wider debate on how the state works, and the methodology details how these positions are collected and remains open to challenge.

What this comparison does not settle

This table does not say which option "works" best: the real effect of compulsory or optional voting depends on political culture, the level of trust in institutions and a context that varies from one country and era to another. Nor does it capture what matters to you — individual freedom, equality of participation, the legitimacy of the elected — which often weighs more than an average turnout.

The right reflex, then, is not to pick a winning camp, but to link each position to the value it defends, then to compare this overview with what you, personally, expect from the way we vote.