Letter: Make it easier to vote

On Saturday, Aug. 19, the final resting place of the USS Indianapolis was discovered, 18,000 feet down in the Philippine Sea. The news of this was mostly overshadowed – or should I say ‘eclipsed’? – by the impending solar theatrics. But fortunately, Ray Duckler wrote about it three days later on the front page of the Monitor.

Most of you know the story from the scene in Jaws where Quint tells of surviving the sinking and spending four days in the ocean as the sharks picked off his fellow survivors one by one.

After delivering parts for the atomic bomb to Tinian Island, the Indianapolis sailed on toward Leyte, when it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945, taking 400 of its 1,200-man crew down with the ship.

Of the 800 who survived the sinking, only 317 were rescued four days later when a bomber pilot spotted the oil slick by chance.

This story has a personal connection for me because as this was happening, my father was en route in the USS Numitor to Okinawa to prepare for the invasion of Japan. He arrived on Aug. 10, 1945, eleven days after the sinking of the Indianapolis and one day after the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki, ending the war.

Many years later, he moved up from Maryland to live with me. As part of the move, he registered to vote. And I’m wondering if he could still do so after the passage of Senate Bill 3 this year. His Maryland license had expired. He had no proof of residency – other than my say-so.

SB 3 makes it harder for some people to register.

I encourage our representatives to find ways to make it easier to register and vote. In this online era, exercising these rights should be more user-friendly.

TOM CHASE

Northwood