Ancient Greece was famously the birth of democracy - the first recognisable elections happened in Greek city states around the 5th Century BC. But even then not all people eligible to vote did so. There was even a special word to describe people who didn't.

And that word was: idiot.

The meaning of the word has changed over the years, but back then an idiot was someone considered self-centered and uneducated; someone unconcerned with public life and the affairs of others. You were born an idiot outside of the system and through education and involvement with everyday life became a citizen.

It just isn't true that all Greeks or even all citizens of Athens were required to vote, and it's not true on many levels.

Only males (free and, originally, propertied; later, also born to two Athenian-born parents) could become citizens.
Only citizens could vote.
These potentially voting citizens were limited to those without a personal or inherited mark (atimia) against them.
In addition, what's true about one period of democracy is not necessarily true of another.

"1275a: 22-23: A citizen defined in simple terms is someone who can participate in judging [that is, serve as a juror in the court system] and in governing [that is, serve in public office, which here means not just magistracies but also serving in the assembly and on the council in systems of government that have these institutions]." Stoa Project Aristotle "

Male Athenian citizens actively participated, but voting was only a part of what was meant by democracy.

Speaking well and being physically present in the communal life were crucial.
The Athenian assembly, which held 6000 citizens, decided most of the issues.
Citizen-orators persuaded their fellow citizen-voters.
The voting itself could be conducted by a show of hands, as is seen Aristophanes' comedy Ecclesiazousai, where Praxagora describes the voting in the Assembly:
It's difficult; yet it must be done, and the arm shown naked to the shoulder in order to vote.
Officials chose the winner based on a visual estimate of the majority of hands. They certainly weren't counting exactly enough to make sure there were 6000 hands on 6000 discrete bodies. Sometimes more secretive ballots were used -- small, colored balls -- placed in urns. 6000 was not the entire citizen body, although it was a hefty portion.
A body of 6000 citizens served as juries, meeting about half the days of the year, with each of the ten tribes providing its required share.
A lottery selected the 400 or 500 men for the third governmental group, called the boule.

Steven Kreis' The Athenian Origins of Direct Democracy explains the "idiot" reference in the student newspaper:

"At Athens, a citizen who held no official position or who was not a habitual orator in the Assembly was branded as idiotai."

This is a far cry from calling the non-voter an "idiot."

Idiotai is also used to distinguish the common people from the poor (penetes) and the more powerful (dynatoi). Idiotai is also used for "unskilled worker."

While we don't know what the population figures are for ancient Athens, and it changed over time, if there were say, 30,000 male citizens, more than a third of them were actively involved in politics at times. If we followed the Athenian example, who would feed, house, clothe, educate, and medicate the families of the politicians? Pay for time spent fulfilling the civic obligation was at first non-existent. Aristotle has several passages in his Politics explaining why. Here is one:

"1308b: 31-33: It is of the greatest importance in all systems of government to have laws and the rest of governmental administration so arranged that magistrates cannot profit financially from their offices."

There is a passage from a work ascribed to Aristotle in a section about Solon that probably led to the columnist's idea. It comes from Constitution section 8:

Further, [Solon] saw the state often engaged in internal disputes, while many of the citizens from sheer indifference accepted whatever might turn up, he made a law with express reference to such persons, enacting that any one who, in a time civil factions, did not take up arms with either party, should lose his rights as a citizen and cease to have any part in the state.

Although not the last word that could be said on the issue, modern Americans are not like classical Athenians. We neither live our lives in public nor do we all want to be politicians (although neither did Socrates, even though he sat on the Athenian Boule). Requiring us to be penalized for failing to

go to the polling booths and
make choices on the ballot

once every 4 years because that's what they did in the birthplace of democracy misses the point of the ancient Greek democratic process.

Author: N.S. Gill Source: www.thoughtco.com

GHD

Idiots Were Not Allowed To Vote In Ancient Athens

And that word was: idiot.

Further Reading on Greek Voting and Idiots