Democracy doesn't work even when people get an opportunity to vote (unless the vote is 2-options, one round): See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...

But it works even worse if voters don't get to vote. True.

For readers who may encounter the Arrow's Impossibility Theorem for the first time, its conclusion is shockingly true but also doesn't prescribe doom. There are reasonable alternative voting systems that don't run into the same "Impossibility" problem https://ncase.me/ballot/

Sure, they don't run up against /Arrow's/ impossibility theorem, but Gibbard's 1978 theorem shows that "Any straightforward game form (deterministic or not) is a probability mixture of game forms each of which is either unilateral or duple."

(For an explanation of what that means, see : https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/14245 )

Edit: though, if I had to recommend one, I'd probably either recommend "ranked pairs" or something exotic with a substantial deal of randomness.

Or, really, maybe I'd advocate that the primaries use ranked pairs, and that the general use FPTP (or something very similar) because it is easier to understand the mechanism, so easier for people to trust it / keep results seen as legitimate, and because parties narrow down the options to 2 for the most part anyway, and all the usual systems are the same once it gets down to two candidates (in random ballot voting, it is still different though)

> The reluctance to let people register to vote is understandable, if your allegiance is to your party before your country.

I think many concerned believe that making sure their party gets elected - no matter how - is allegiance to their country. It's internally consistent if you genuinely believe that the other party seeks to destroy your country, and therefore is to be opposed by all available means.

It becomes even more problematic when one of the political parties view compromise as a part of its ideology and the other doesn't. One side is politely fighting and the other is waging a guerilla war.

  doesn't get an opportunity to vote

Choosing not to vote, or apathy about voting a given ballot, does not mean that an eligible voter lacked the opportunity.