How To Be An Effective U.S. Citizen By LEE H. HAMILTON Guest Columnist It’s so easy in a presidential election year to forget that our system is not about a single person. This year especially, when the dynamics of the presidential contest have dominated news coverage so thoroughly that even the Senate and House races have largely disappeared from view, the crucial role that citizens play – apart from serving as voters in the presidential drama – isn’t even an afterthought. Yet effective citizenship is the base on which our representative democracy rests.