Newscasts, news websites, blogs, leaders and pundits are telling every American how important it is to vote. Candidates in every race across the country, but especially in the elections to Congress, run advertisements and in their presentations say how important it is for every single person to vote.

However, trying to find the correct information needed to vote in this election is fighting against a nuclear noise bomb of intentionally confusing actions and threatening words, often from the Federal Government. In several states, governors and other officials have worked to make it more difficult to cast your vote. 

Purposeful barriers to voting and voting information come from constant declarations casting doubt on the process from the President of the United States.  He is aided by the Congress’s failure to enact any real reforms. Completing a trifecta of failure of Constitutional checks and balances is a United States Supreme Court majority that often exacerbates confusion.

Institutions led by Republicans seem intent on interfering with what was considered the democratic model of an honest voting system. Some states can’t seem to do enough to keep people from casting their votes.  They are closing a number of polling places, changing the places that you vote and taking away some of the drop boxes that allow you to post your mail-in ballot without relying on an increasingly unreliable US Mail.

Since you can’t rely on many government institutions that interact with our elections, each of us must become a voting warrior for American democracy and the candidates who will return us to a system that allows all who are eligible to vote with ease.  Like Paul Revere, we each have the responsibility to alert our communities to what is being done to their ability to vote.

We must take the time to answer these important questions: How can you find the voting records of incumbents so that a constituent can decide if the person is representing the voter and their community or has allegiance to some other ideals?  How can a citizen find reliable sites that give true instructions about how, when and where to vote and where to take your ballot to make sure it counts?

Because I am a lawyer, every day my friends and neighbors who are concerned about the cost of groceries or gas, the treatment of immigrants, antisemitism, the corruption they see in the granting of pardons, the huge personal enrichment of some in government, the destruction of the White House and the Kennedy Center, and the daily assault on the First Amendment freedom of the press and religion ask me what they can do. Here is what I suggest.

First, VOTE yourself, as early as possible.  I try to vote the first few days of early voting in New Mexico.  If it is possible, vote in person. If there are mail-in ballots in your state, take them to drop boxes. But that is not enough.

If we were in a fire fight, it wouldn’t be enough to secure just our family or ourselves.  We would fight to protect the entire community.  If the nefarious aim is to suppress voting, your patriotic duty is to make sure that does not happen.

The right thing to do is check around your neighborhood to see who needs rides to a polling place and who needs a ride to drop off their ballot to a drop box instead of putting it in the mail.  You are the ride, not just the voter. The duty of every patriotic American is to make sure voting is not only not suppressed, but that this is the greatest turnout in modern history.

This requires quickly rebuilding our communities for communal action. Many rely on those fine lawyers going to the courts to stop some of the worst actions to suppress voting. But those lawyers who are foot soldiers of the democracy, can’t produce votes. 

This week organize your churches, synagogues, mosques and temples and community organizations to get every registered voter in the congregation or group to the polls or ballot drop off boxes.  Know in your state what it takes to be registered, obtain the required forms, and at every group you attend, including bowling leagues or at golf or a dinner party, ask if you can register those who are not.

On voting days, check the polling places near you.  If you have a car, be prepared to help.  For some, the extra time or travel will make voting impossible. 

Volunteer to take and stay with those American Citizens who are worried about what ICE or even the FBI might do at the polls, hopefully making it less stressful to vote. Suggest that they bring their Real ID cards or passports if they have one.

If you see something at a polling place or drop box, that seems illegal; ICE Agents, people asking those in voting lines for identification or if they are U.S. Citizens, anyone armed or threatening nearby, call your local police or sheriff’s office and wait until they come.

As an American Patriot, commit yourself not just to voting, but to the entire country’s voting process.  There is no evidence that there has been anything other than a whit of voting fraud.  Our elections are run by our secretaries of state, our county clerks and our local election volunteers who are our neighbors and are Republicans, Democrats and Independents.  However, they can’t make sure that citizens actually turn out. But you can.

In the American Revolution who would you be: standing at the barricades? Sewing bandages, giving small pox vaccinations, responding to George Washington’s call to action, or just trying to keep your head down? To be an American Patriot today is to vote and help others to vote.

Untrue social media, false information in political campaigns and in some cases the Federal Government and state government’s actions to suppress voting are at least as dangerous to our country as the Redcoats were during the Revolution. No one is shooting at us yet, but will you act to make sure this is the highest voting election in our history? Your children and grandchildren, the democratic world and those who yearn for democratic rights depend on you.

This is the moment to answer firmly and positively to Benjamin Franklin’s spirit:  we will indeed keep the Republic by an overwhelming turnout at the polls. Show Abigail Adams that women who can now vote, do so.

Under New Mexico’s endless skies and the spotlights of the sun’s rays, there is no way to hide who we really are: actors or bystanders, people of courage or not. We will all see the results in November and our country’s future will depend on them.