This study investigates how mandatory voting influences public dissatisfaction with democracy, challenging the common assumption that compulsory participation fosters pro-democratic views.

Data & Methods: Leveraged analysis from three distinct cross-national surveys and a natural experiment to explore this effect in different contexts.

Key findings reveal:

* Compulsory voting does not uniformly strengthen democratic attitudes; it can actually heighten dissatisfaction among certain segments of the population.

* This negative outcome seems amplified for individuals with initially unfavorable views towards democracy, who may perceive forced participation as validating an illegitimate system.

The implications suggest that mandatory voting policies might have unintended consequences by reinforcing perceptions of democratic deficit in vulnerable groups. These findings complicate our understanding of how civic engagement mechanisms impact political orientations.