When Rebecca Lineham sampled 25 of her 400 Facebook friends and discovered that not a one was registered to vote, she knew it was time to take action.
So the 25-year-old single mom contacted Rock the Vote, a national organization dedicated to youth voter registration. The upshot: Vancouver will become Washington’s first Rock the Vote site this election season, with permission to use the Rock the Vote logo on shirts, hats, bracelets and other swag.
With fingers crossed, Lineham will host the first of a series of nonpartisan voter registration evenings Thursday at Dodge City Saloon, 4250 E. Fourth Plain Blvd. The events will begin at 6 p.m. and run until the bar’s 2 a.m. closing every Thursday through Oct. 22. Lineham’s goal is to register a thousand people, ages 18 to 29, by then.
Lineham, a fifth-generation Clark County resident, graduated from Evergreen High and plans to return to school at The Evergreen State College in Olympia this winter.
She’s been discouraged to find that apathy runs deep among her peers, regardless of their political persuasion.
“A lot of people don’t know where to vote. They don’t even know who’s running, or care,” she said. “It’s dropped off so much” since candidate Barack Obama mobilized the youth vote in 2008.
“It’s unfortunate that people do not realize the impact that this particular midterm could have, or they believe that Washington is going to be a ‘blue state’ no matter what,” she said. “Many feel disillusioned after being in several tours to Iraq and coming home to a frozen economy.”
Lineham is looking for volunteers to help her gather names and e-mail addresses so they can make reminder calls to people who take a registration form home without filling it out on-site. She’ll answer questions related to voting deadlines and voter eligibility. She’s also hoping to conduct a small voter registration drive at Clark College focusing on 18-year-olds.
Lineham inherited her commitment to voting from her mother, who told her how high voter turnout by protesters during the Vietnam War helped change history.
Can she make turned-off 20-somethings care about politics?
She has modest goals.
“I don’t know that I am going to be able to accomplish making them care,” she said. “It’s my first foray into bringing some awareness.” She wants to impress on people that “politicians aren’t slimeballs. They are actually very nice.”
She also wants to reach out to other young parents with the message, “You have kids, and you don’t want to vote?”
Lineham can be reached at rlineham@live.com.
