TEXAS – The deadline to register to vote in Texas is Monday, October 5, and a number of volunteers are busy making sure Texans can make their voices heard at the ballot box.

“I’ve been doing stuff like this since I was 15. My father was in the army and so he instilled a very strong civic mindedness in all of us," said 66-year-old Diane Hernandez.

She spent her weekend volunteering, registering people to vote. It's something that’s been a passion of hers for years.

“I’ve been an election observer, [an] election clerk doing voter registration – so I think it's very important," said Hernandez. "For women in particular, voting is a hard-won right… we need to not take it for granted.”

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Instead of organizing on her own, this year she joined the League of Women Voters.

“A lot of my efforts have been on my own or with friends and I felt like I needed to be part of a larger organization,” said Hernandez.

She’s especially proud of the group’s Vote 4-1-1 website, which helps voters navigate their ballots before they reach the polls.

“For this election there's no straight party voting so you have to go down the ballot, one by one," said Hernandez. "I recommend to everyone, [check out] Vote 4-1-1… you can actually type in your address, and then it'll populate all the candidates and propositions for your precinct as per your address.”

She also recommends having a voting plan – something she’s done herself already.

“I decided I'm going to go in person on the first day of early voting. I'm going to be in line before 7 a.m. on October 13," said Hernandez. "I did that for the last couple of elections and I liked the energy of the early people.”

Although her father has passed, she remembers him every time she exercises her right to vote.

“We lived in Germany twice. And, you know, my dad made sure we understood why we were there, and my dad served our country for more than 30 years now, and I’m very proud of him. So I'm doing this for him, too,” she said.