I have to thank reader Stewart for writing in and challenging yesterday’s statement that most people in the world can’t vote. Out of the people of average voting age, it is probably not true. The CIA World Factbook page on Suffrage only lists five countries with no voting rights. But Stewart and I agreed that even if there were a tally of the voting population, the end number would still be open to the questions of how many truly have free will when voting and how many votes are thrown away for convenience. Maybe democracy still comes out ahead. Maybe what works best for most of the population (democracy or not) comes out ahead, which would be OK too. One interesting concept I noticed from the Factbook is that there are countries where voting is compulsory. I’d hate to think that some of these laws have roots in evil enforcements (vote for us or else!), but it’s an interesting idea. It probably isn’t a good idea for the U.S. however. That Devo song said it well: “Freedom of choice is what you got. Freedom from choice is what you want.”