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Letter: Voting isn’t just a right, it’s a responsibility

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sage Mack, 19 (right), drops her ballot in the ballot box and casts her first vote ever with her sister CoCo Mack (left). Lines and wait times were long at the Democratic caucus at Clayton Middle School as both registered party members and unaffiliated voters cast their ballots, Tuesday, March 22, 2016.

Rep. Deidre Henderson, in her June 3 column “The right to vote is key to democracy,” correctly stresses the importance of our right to vote. But she does not go far enough to say that it is not only a “right” but, more important, it is a “responsibility.”

If no one voted, we would not have a democracy (representative democracy, that is). Or, if our votes became a sham — witness Venezuela — we would not have a democracy.

Refusing to vote and not accepting and supporting the outcome of that vote are as damaging to our political way of life as Russia’s intrusion into our election system.

Errol Remington, Salt Lake City