When it comes to voting, heed this straightforward advice: Show up and act right

This year we face an urgent call as citizens: cast your vote. But there is an equally important addendum: be peaceful about it. Or, as the girl in me who grew up in Olney wants to say: Show up and act right.

The importance of “showing up” is easy to understand.

In Philadelphia, we are governed by those who go out to the polls on Election Day. According to the Philadelphia City Commissioners, less than 32% of eligible voters citywide voted in the last general election. The Washington Post reported in June that “in the 2022 midterms, when turnout rose statewide, just 43% of voters in the city [of Philadelphia] cast ballots.”

Nowhere is the reality of this more evident than in Kensington, where I work and live. Voter turnout in Kensington wards is closer to 10% — and yet it is currently one of the most talked about and heavily “governed” neighborhoods of Philadelphia — complete with its own caucus of government officials, increased policing, and restrictions on legal businesses.

But the “acting right” part is easier to overlook.

Over the years, I have seen arguments nearly escalate to physical altercations.

In 2020, I worked as the campaign coordinator for the AFL-CIO Labor 2020 Campaign across our commonwealth and had to ride my bike past throngs of heavily armed National Guard officers just to distribute information about the ever-changing voting landscape during a global pandemic.

I heard stories during that election about Americans who could not speak English being confronted and turned away from polling places in the city — those same non-English-speaking Americans were then too afraid to report the incidents to authorities.

Nowhere is the current threat of political electoral violence more evident than online.

The threat of violence continued even after the voting was over and the counting had begun. While I stood outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center and marched at City Hall with like-minded peaceful protesters until every vote was counted, police said two men brought a truckload of guns to try to infiltrate the Convention Center where the ballots were being tabulated. The incident made international news.

It happened before 2020, as well. In 2017 in East Falls, for example, I had to put myself between two women, a Democrat and a Republican, yelling at each other in front of a polling place for fear that it would escalate into a physical attack.

Violence and voting are hardly new to each other. During Election Day on Oct. 10, 1871, violence directed at Black men voting after the adoption of the 15th Amendment erupted throughout Philadelphia. As he left his home to protect the right to vote for all, Octavius V. Catto, who had served as a volunteer in the Civil War, was murdered in front of his home by a man from an opposing political party.

» READ MORE: As Election Day approaches, political violence escalates and America’s racist history repeats itself | Opinion

More than 150 years after the killing of Catto, a study by the Injury Epidemiology Journal shows that 20% of U.S. voters would support or justify violence to advance a political objective.

I was also at the Democratic National Convention held in Philadelphia in 2016 and saw firsthand the excitement of the first woman nominated by a major political party to run for president, and experienced the attacks on her that included misogynistic rhetoric and misinformation through social media memes. As the DNC in Chicago opens next week, undoubtedly we’ll see another upswing in memes and attack posts on social media.

» READ MORE: Political violence tore America apart in the 1850s. Today, this Yale historian says we’re ‘on the edge’ | Will Bunch

Nowhere is the current threat of political electoral violence more evident than online. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems considers cyberviolence a particularly detrimental part of violence against women in elections “because it is intended to silence women’s voices and prevent them from exercising their civic and political rights.” The United Nations Broadband Commission considers violence experienced by women online as a “pandemic” — with 73% of women experiencing or having been exposed to it.

And, according to the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Government and Intervention, “the threat of political violence is just as detrimental to the American psyche as the violent events themselves.”

Remember that the future of our republic and democracy is in the hands of each of us.

A lot has happened to the election landscape in Philadelphia in recent years, but we need to remember there is not some distant cabal acting on elections. We, the people, watch the polls, we oversee the voting. And we, the people, cast our votes. The importance of exercising this right hasn’t changed — though many Americans choose not to avail themselves of this right.

When we eschew these rights, we create a void and sow seeds of mistrust among each other.

The ability for voters to trust the results of November’s election lies with each of us — in how we act and conduct ourselves. Let us live up to that calling. We need to, positively, encourage each other to vote.

I ask you to remember:

That it is the right of each of us to vote in the way we see fit.

That it is up to us, the people, to have a smooth, safe, and fair election that we can trust.

That the discourse we have online impacts people and can cause people to act.

That the challenge we truly face is getting more individuals to vote, and understanding how to vote properly, whether by mail or in person.

Remember that the future of our republic and democracy is in the hands of each of us.

How we conduct ourselves in this is paramount this year. Let us remember to bring the best of ourselves to this election season and to the ballot box.

Aja Beech is the deputy director of the community newspaper Kensington Voice.