ok...thanks for making me look it up Diane..lol..In NZ you must register to vote or you are fined. They call  it compulsory registration. In Australia you must vote also or you are fined but they have been going back and forth on the issue here. I think I read there are 20 countries in the world with this practice and you would be suprised at which ones they are. The reasoning is that the type of people that usually vote are wealthy and white and NZ and Aussie have a large indiginious population that were not being represented. This is a typical response to social problems here. They are not very PC, common sense seems to be more important. It's the same with immigration. If you don't follow the proper procedures to get in you are out, no matter what may happen to you when you go back..it is really sad sometimes when you hear the stories but the people know the consequences and they are always the same..  NZ was also the first country in the world to allow women to vote, although as with pavlova, and lots of other things, they argue with Aussies about who was first..