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alienable duties. These duties are not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, or in the Constitution. They were taken as granted as essential supports of democratic government.
The fjrst is participation in government and in political action. Jefferson warned that if citizens were indifferent, the magistrates would take over. When he visited the U.S. in 1831, de Tocqueville observed that “to take a hand in the government of society and to talk about it is his (the American citizen’s) most important business.
Today voter turn-out in major national elections regularly falls below 50 percent. In primaries and lesser elections the turn-out is much lower as we saw in the recent Democratic primary here. The fault does not lie only with the citizens. Many voters are kept form participating because of restrictive registration and residential laws, and by state and federal laws that give special preference to the Republican and Democratic parties.
92.9%