Users or Pushers? Democracy American Style

According to dictionary.com a democracy is:

de·moc·ra·cy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[di-mok-ruh-see]–noun
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

As far as democracy goes (to quote Jon Stewart) we are "pushers not users".

An ongoing study done by George Mason University - The United States Elections Project, shows the 2004 elections yielded these results:

• voting age population was 221,285,099
• 8.45% of this number are non-citizens and therefore ineligible
• 3,158,443 were "ineligible felons"
• eligible voting population - 202,746,417
• Total voter turnout in 2004 - 123,535,883 or 60.9% of eligible voters

In the 2006 midterms the numbers are even lower, with only 41.3% turnout. Moving on to the 2008 primaries and we see numbers in some states dipping to a 5.9% turnout.

Our leadership claims to be "spreading democracy" yet in our last presidential election, 39.1% of eligible voters didn't even bother to vote. Math is not my strong suit ... but is 51% of 60.9% even close to a mandate? The "silent majority" in America would seem to be those that don't even bother to exercise their right to vote. Participatory democracy, indeed.