Local deputy voter registrar hosts Rock the Vote event

By PAMELA GRANT

Cove Leader-Press

“You do have the power to make your voice heard by casting your vote,” said Crystal Owens of Copperas Cove. “You can register, and you can take a few minutes to go vote.”

Owens, a volunteer deputy voting registrar in Coryell Count, teamed up with Brother Jon and the Rainbow Hearts and Nikki Reazola’s The Bookstore Barber Salon to host a Rock the Vote event. They wanted to encourage the public to attend a free, fun event while getting involved by registering to vote.

Brother Jon and the Rainbow Hearts performed a variety of songs to provide entertainment for the event. 

Registration occurred outside the store, and volunteers offered prizes to incentivize people to register to vote.

“We’re trying to build community involvement,” said Crystal Owens.

Owens is also the manager for Brother Jon and the Rainbow Hearts. She said that they wanted to make sure the event was fun and free. She said she was surprised by how many people are not registered to vote.

Both Owens and Reazola mentioned the negativity on the Copperas Cove Hot Topics Facebook page and wanted to push through the negativity and bring their own positivity.

“When you hear that constantly, it’s so easy to get enveloped in that and let that become your mindset,” said Owens. “Although it’s small, we’re just going to keep pushing back against that. We’re just going to keep putting out our rainbows and our love.”

Owens said that they hope to be able to host more registration events in the future. She said that she encourages everyone to double check to make sure that they are still registered to vote if they were previously registered just to make sure that nothing happened to unregister them. For anyone unregistered, but eligible to vote, they encourage them to register.

Owens became a Volunteer Deputy Registrar (VDR) so that she has the proper certification to register people to be able to vote. She said that she is very grateful for people like Reazola for inviting them into her shop.

For her part, Reazola was excited to allow the group to use her space. Reazola is a member of Brother Jon and the Rainbow Hearts.

“We’re a non-partisan space,” said Reazola about The Bookstore Barber Salon. “My shop is a safe space. We’re very diverse. People can gather from all different backgrounds, and we can make something better in this community…We’re better together.”

Reazola said that she loves being a member of the Rainbow Hearts saying, “It’s just a big jam of friends…Everybody is so positive.”

She said that positivity is contagious in a good way, and it creates more and more positivity.

“I love it,” said Teresa Griffin, a Bell County Registrar about the Rock the Vote event. “We have some amazing local candidates. Even if you’re worried about the top of the ticket, we’ve got some amazing local candidates, and you can hold them accountable. Maybe you feel distant from say your senator, but at the county level, you might be able to go out and say to your county commissioner, ‘Hey I want you to fix this,’ and they might listen to you. You can talk to them in person.”

“I want to vote this year. I missed out last year,” said Carlee Tanner who registered to vote at Saturday’s event. “This one is very important…I think LGBT rights are very important, and health care is very important…I want to do the little bit that I can.”

The last day to register for the November 2024 election is October 7.