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Mid-term elections are a tough sell in the United States. Turnout in 2014 was a 70-year low, something like 36%. We did better in 2018 with about half of all eligible voters showing up. Coming up on today's explain, we'll ask what this country would look like if voting was mandatory.

Midterm elections are a tough sell in the United States. Half of eligible voters show up in a good year. On Election Day, we’re revisiting an episode about how things work down under, where “sausage sizzles” and “bathers” make mandatory voting feel like a party.

This episode was originally produced by Noam Hassenfeld and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. It was updated by Amina Al-Sadi with help from Efim Shapiro and Matt Collette. New reporting by Amanda Lewellyn, Miles Bryan, Laura Bullard, and Hady Mawajdeh.

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