Typically there's a voter-registration process. It is easy to vote - if you have a flexible work schedule, time and money available to file the necessary paperwork, and/or live in a place where local politicians have decided it *should* be easy to vote. If those apply to you, you likely underestimate the difficulty for the people who don't have those advantages. There are many possible disadvantages: Selective enforcement and racial profiling may mean that you get harassed by police or other citizens. If you're elderly, poor, or disabled, you might not have a driver's license - or a way to get to the DMV for a photo ID. Authorities may also require you to vote in person or to travel far from your home and wait in line a long time to vote. (Here are yet more examples of subtle ways access to voting can be manipulated to benefit the incumbent party.) Disinformation and intimidation are also used, up to the present day, to suppress voter turnout in vulnerable communities. As usual, Republicans focus on making it harder to vote - especially for the poor and minorities, under the guise of efficiency or fighting fraud. Democrats are much more likely to encourage everyone to vote by allowing mail-in ballots, same-day voter registration, etc.
This link gives the history and context of various voter-suppression tactics that didn't formally remove the right to vote but collectively established enough hurdles to effectively disenfranchise the majority of persons of color in the areas where they applied. The Voting Rights Act blocked many of these voter-suppression tactics, but the Supreme Court recently moved to weaken the VRA.
You can verify your voter registration here: https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/
You can register to vote here.
You can report voting irregularities (to the Justice Department whose political appointees currently seek to weaken voting rights) here.
Other organizations also take complaints about disenfranchisement:
https://www.votingrightsinstitute.org/report/
https://my.ofa.us/page/s/vpcreport
This post is part of a series on voting. See also: