Carter Reaches the Milestone He Was Waiting For

In August Jimmy Carter told son Chip Carter that he was more interested in holding on long enough to vote for Kamala Harris than in reaching his 100th birthday. He has now reached both milestones. The former president, who turned 100 on Oct. 1 and has been in hospice care for 19 months, cast his ballot on Wednesday, the day after early voting began in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Chip Carter said his father, the oldest living ex-president, "absolutely" voted for Harris. Before Carter's birthday celebration, Chip Carter told the AP: "I asked him two months ago if he was trying to live to be 100, and he said, 'No, I'm trying to live to vote for Kamala Harris.'"

Carter Center Chairman Jason Carter, the former president's grandson, said Carter voted by mail and the ballot was placed in a drop box at the Sumter County Courthouse near his hometown of Plains, ABC News reports. The AP notes that Carter's vote will be counted even if he dies before Election Day. Robert Sinners, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, says that under state rules, when officials receive an absentee ballot, "it shall be deemed to have been voted then and there." (More Jimmy Carter stories.)