Colombia has the reputation of being one of the countries with the lowest electoral participation in Latin America, which, on several occasions in the country’s recent history, has sparked debates about making voting mandatory. In general, this is based on a positive assessment of citizen participation and its importance for democracy; however, rarely has this been supported by a rigorous diagnosis of the problem of abstention. This book aims to contribute to this larger picture by studying electoral participation from several perspectives: historical, geographical, sociological, as well as comparatively with other Latin American countries. Thus, it demonstrates that the tendency to abstention cannot be generalized to the whole country. Additionally, it also seeks to contribute to the debate on mandatory voting, by identifying, based on electoral results, groups that are least likely to be heard through the polls and what kind of problems these disparities pose for democracy in Colombia.