Shirking civic duties comes with consequences

Discussions of important civic duties almost always include two — voting and jury duty.

While a statistical blip might occur from time to time, the voting record of Americans in the past several decades pretty much stinks — from local races to those of national significance.

I think most people believe jury duty fares no better. Many localities used to pull potential jurors from registered-voter rolls. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it caused some people to not register, a kind of civic engagement double whammy.

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