In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to get lots of mail about it (but ultimately, staying off the electoral roll isn't difficult).

I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care.

In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much entirely on how badly voluntary voting in the US works.

When voting is voluntary there is an incentive with certain groups to dissuade, discourage or simply make it difficult for others to vote. In US elections there have been cases of bribing homeless people to vote with cigarettes or alcohol. Getting into vote can be difficult with long lines.

In Australia pretty much all these problems go away because you have to vote and the AEC (Australian Elecotral Commission) has to provide enough capacity to do so so, unless you go in the first hour or two of the morning, you can typically be in and out in 5-10 minutes tops.

Politicians love an apathetic population. So by all means go out and vote.