Missouri WWII veteran, 94, casts ballot amid applause from voters

Published 2:57 pm Tuesday, November 8, 2016

JOPLIN, Mo. — When 94-year-old Harvey Erwin showed up to vote Tuesday morning, there was already a long line of dozens of voters at his southwestern Missouri polling place.

Erwin, a World War II veteran, took his place at the back of the line alongside his daughter, Jane Johnson. Somebody in line behind him at the Joplin, Missouri, polling precinct noticed his military cap and thanked him for his service.

Turning on his cane and stumbling a little bit, Erwin shook the man’s hand. Another person suggested that Erwin move to the front of the line to avoid standing for so long and arranged with the poll workers to let him ahead of everybody.

“When we walked by, all these people started clapping for him,” Johnson said. “I’ve got goosebumps right now talking about it. It was so sweet.”

Erwin, a former accountant, served in the U.S. Air Force from 1941 to 1944 as a tail gunner flying B-24s. He flew 25 missions before leaving the service, he said.

To date, he said, he has never missed an election. He first voted at age 18 during the 1940 presidential election, when Democrat Franklin Roosevelt broke precedent — and made history — by seeking a third term.

Erwin also joins the ranks of a large number of nonagenarians and centenarians who exercised their right to vote in this historic election, including 102-year-old Geraldine “Jerry” Emmett, whose early vote for Hillary Clinton grabbed the attention of national and international media outlets.

“It’s my heritage to vote,” Erwin said Tuesday during an interview via his daughter. “You can’t criticize if you don’t vote.”

Younker writes for the Joplin, Missouri Globe.