Voting is a right, not an obligation. The notion that it should be mandatory stems from the premise that not voting is equivalent to a complete lack of political participation; yet, in many cases, abstention is a far more significant political act than the act of voting itself. A democracy must account for those who disagree with the system's structure—individuals for whom "active abstention" is the only way to express their discontent. After all, if you vote merely by process of elimination, you are effectively validating the system. Furthermore, the idea that everyone ought to understand and take an interest in politics is untenable. While it is true that politics is a part of everyone’s life, the same could be said for, say, car mechanics—yet we do not require everyone who uses a car to be knowledgeable about or interested in how it works. For this reason, mandating political participation makes no sense—both for those who choose active abstention and for those who, lacking any prior interest in politics, would otherwise participate from a position of disinterest and misinformation.