Letter: What is a secure election worth?

Perhaps the pages of the Dubois County Free Press are not the correct venue to have a political debate; but, it’s the only venue we have.

To many people, on both sides of the aisle, we have an integrity crisis in our election system. It’s really a rather new crisis. Yes, as a nation we have grappled with our elections since 1865. Why? Because some people didn’t want newly freed slaves to vote. Why? Because these people were afraid that out of spite, the newly freed slaves would vote counter to the way the “establishment” wanted them to vote. Where was this happening? In the Democrat South, especially during the failed Reconstruction post war years.

What is wrong with only allowing US citizens to vote? What is wrong with requiring people to prove their citizenship? Is it difficult, sometimes. As President Kennedy said on September 12, 1962 at Rice University, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Mr. Larson keeps missing the point, no matter how large, or small, the fraud is, it’s still fraud. If it’s hard to register to vote, perhaps that’s why voting is so vital to our nation. Every nation’s elections are limited to only their citizens. All countries have a system to ensure only those eligible to vote can register. Why should the United States be any different?

Not having a birth certificate is not a problem. In 1933 my father had to present proof that he was old enough to join the Army. Since he was born at home in 1914 he had no birth certificate. There was no doctor in attendance at his birth so there was official birth certificate. How did he go about proving his age? My father took the family bible to the Martin County Clerk and the Clerk prepared a “birth certificate”. Why is this story important? Because no matter how hard something is to obtain, there is always a way, a legal way. My father, Charles R. Arvin retired in 1966 after serving 33 years in the Army thanks to a family bible.

Yes, it’s illegal for a non-citizen to vote in our federal elections. But, how does one police this law? 

The questions for Mr. Larson are simple: What documentation and process would be acceptable to him to register to vote? No proof of citizenship? No photo ID? No age verification? What?

Jim Arvin
Rutherford Township
Martin County