American Experiment, Voting Right, Voting Responsibilty

One of the successes of the American Experiment has been its stability--the seamless continuity of its electoral operations for more than two centuries, uninterrupted by even the Civil War.  Only partly successful has been the cultivation of respect for universal voting rights, whether de facto or de jure.  In contrast, a significant failure has been the complement of a Right to Vote--a Responsibility to Vote, the general non-recognition of which proves that failure.  That voting is perceived, by even those who do vote, as an imposition on those who do not, is an implicit indication of a privileging of Oligarchy, i. e. of a Polity in which Many are ruled by a Few.  For, by not voting, one allows others to determine the conditions of one's life, a concession that is not nullified by indifference.