As Americans face a tumultuous presidential election, we could probably use a reminder that voting is a privilege that should be celebrated.

First-time voters, young future voters, voters who risk their lives around the world – they all show that democracy is an amazing responsibility.

Here, an Afghan woman shows her inked finger after voting at a polling station for the 2010 parliamentary elections north of Kabul, Afghanistan. 

The Taliban had warned voters to boycott the polls, threatening violence against those who disobeyed. 

Members of the Army’s Golden Knights parachute team encourage Americans who live abroad to submit their absentee ballots in time for the 2016 election. 

A woman kneels down to take a break while waiting in line to vote early in Los Angeles in October. 

Los Angeles officials said some voters were waiting more than two hours to cast their early ballots. 

A German mother, with the help of a toddler, casts her ballot in Berlin state elections in September 2016.

Early voters wait in Columbus, Ohio, to cast their votes the day before Election Day 2016. 

Harold Weitzel helps his wife, Sally, cast her absentee vote in Cleveland, Ohio, in October 2016.

Lt. j.g. Jessica Vaeth explains to U.S. Navy sailors how to register for an absentee ballot in August 2016.

Pakistani women pose with national identity cards as they line up to cast ballots during the general election in Rawalpindi in 2013. 

Voting in Pakistan is often disrupted by violence.

Schoolchildren register for a special “Kids Vote” while their parents cast their midterm-election ballots at a Kentucky elementary school in 2014.

The “Kids Vote” was designed to encourage children to exercise their right to vote when they turn 18. 

Kuwaiti women show the victory sign as they wait to cast their vote for the first time in the national parliamentary elections north of Kuwait City in June 2006. 

Heavy early voter turnout makes for a lengthy wait in Columbus, Ohio, the day before Election Day 2016. 

A South Korean soldier walks out of a booth after casting his absentee ballot for the country’s 2012 presidential election in Seoul.

Bangladeshi ‘hijra’ social worker Joya Shikder holds her national identity card in Dhaka in December 2008. 

Among the millions of new voters in the 2008 elections were roughly 100,000 hijras — cross-dressing, pre- and post-operative trans people — allowed to cast ballots for the first time. 

LaRon Brown has his Ohio voter registration card filled out by an America Coming Together worker outside his home in September 2004. 

ACT registered more than 300,000 new voters in Ohio alone ahead of the 2004 presidential election.

A firefighter votes in a tent used as a polling place in Rockaway, Queens, as New York recovers from Hurricane Sandy in November 2012. 

Dozens of polling stations in New Jersey and New York were forced to relocate because of storm damage. 

Men in Oman cast their votes at a polling station in Muscat in October 2003. 

The election was the first in which all Omanis over 21 were given the right to vote, compared with only one in four in 2000.

An Iranian woman casts her ballot in the presidential elections in Tehran on June 12, 2009. 

Women gained the right to vote in Iran in 1963.

Kuwaitis celebrate after women are granted the right to vote and run for office in 2005. 

“I congratulate the women of Kuwait for having achieved their political rights,” said Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

Abeer Al-Zayadi waits for new Iraqi-American voters to register at her Michigan polling station in January 2005. 

An estimated 240,000 Iraqi expatriates living in the U.S. were eligible to vote in the 2005 Iraqi elections for the first time in 50 years. 

An Iranian citizen living in the Washington, D.C., area fills out her ballot as she prepares to vote in the Iranian presidential election in 2013.

Saudi women cast their votes for the Jeddah municipal elections in December 2015. 

The election was the first time in which Saudi women were allowed to vote in a governmental election.