Fifteen days after turning 100, former US president Jimmy Carter cast his vote in the US election on Wednesday, fulfilling his earlier expressed wish to live long enough to support Kamala Harris in the poll.
The former Democratic leader “voted by mail,” according to the Carter Center, the non-profit organisation he founded after leaving the White House in 1981 to pursue his vision of global diplomacy.
The centenarian, who left office under a cloud of unpopularity but has seen his reputation improve over the years, took advantage of early voting in his home state of Georgia, where he is currently receiving hospice care.
Carter had told his family earlier this year that living long enough to vote for Harris and help defeat her Republican rival, Donald Trump, was more important to him than reaching his centenary, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.
In the end, he achieved both milestones.
More than 420,000 people have cast their ballots since early voting began on Tuesday in Georgia, according to Gabriel Sterling, a state election official who posted the figures at midday.
Election Day is on 5 November.
Jimmy Carter, a one-term president, has been receiving end-of-life care in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, since February last year.
He is the first-ever former US president to reach the century mark, another extraordinary milestone for the one-time peanut farmer who worked his way to the White House.
AFP
