NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 14, 2016

Q: Bulgaria's government says making it mandatory for citizens to vote would curb electoral fraud and boost the legitimacy of the political process. Last week, lawmakers passed a bill that could fine non-voters. Where is Bulgaria?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Bulgaria has had five governments in less than three years. Bulgaria has what form of government?

A. Constitutional monarchy

B. Communist state

C. Federal republic

D. Parliamentary democracy

D. Bulgaria is ruled by its elected National Assembly which selects a prime minister and cabinet who wield executive power. The last national election in 2014 saw the lowest turnout in 25 years, of about 51 percent, and produced a particularly fractured parliament.

Q: Compared with Bulgaria's 51 percent turnout, the lowest participation in a U.S. presidential election in the last 25 years was . . .

A. Higher

B. Lower

B. Only 49 percent of voting age Americans participated in the 1996 election, and the average for the last 10 presidential elections is about 53 percent. Participation in U.S. “off-year” and local elections is usually much, much lower.

Q: Only half of the 22 nations that have compulsory voting laws actually enforce them. One nation that doesn't enforce its compulsory voting law is Bulgaria's southern neighbor. What is the name of this nation which is often called the birthplace of democracy?

A. Athens

B. Byzantium

C. Greece

D. Romania

C. Greece's capital city of Athens was home to the ancient Athenian democracy which held that it was every citizen's duty to participate in decision making and voting. Attendance at the city-state's assembly was voluntary, but citizens were under social pressure to participate.

Q: The ancient Greeks under Alexander the Great conquered the area that is now Bulgaria, and the country was later ruled by invaders from Bulgaria's other southern neighbor . . .

A. Romania

B. Russia

C. Serbia

D. Turkey

D. Bulgaria became independent from the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1908. Bulgaria is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, and the Black Sea to the east.