Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt — January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945

• The United States trails most developed countries in voter turnout. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/21/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries/
• Cynicism and apathy keep many people from voting. If you believe that your vote doesn’t count (often true) or that there’s no one who represents you (often true), you are very likely to pass up the opportunity.
• Voter suppression and outright electoral fraud are shockingly common. (Republicans)
• The U.S. has so far avoided some of the common-sense ways other democracies encourage participation, like weekend voting, compulsory voting, and automatic voter registration.
• Parties neglect the hard work of registering new voters and getting them to the polls, assuming that their core constituencies have no place else to go. (Democrats)
• As a society, we are still “amusing our selves to death.” There’s an awful lot of other things that are more fun than politics.
• Good news: voter turnout in the 2018 midterm elections was higher than it has been since at least 1916. This suggests that people are “getting it.”