Former President Jimmy Carter casts vote in 2024 presidential election
The Carter Center/Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (The Carter Center/Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)
PLAINS, Ga. - Former President Jimmy Carter has cast his ballot in the 2024 presidential election, the Carter Center has confirmed.
The organization told FOX 5 that Carter, who turned 100 years old and has been in hospice for more than a year and a half, voted by mail on Wednesday,
Despite his health complications over the last few years, politics has remained an important part of the former president and Georgia statesman's life. He had previously voted in May's primary election.
Grandson James Earl "Chip" Carter III said in September that his grandfather didn't care about making history as the first president to live to 100. Instead, he was focused on voting.
"He said he didn’t care about that. It’s just a birthday. He said he cared about voting for Kamala Harris," Chip Carter said.
Grandson Jason Carter said the centenarian president, born four years after women were granted the constitutional right to vote and four decades before Black women won ballot access, had been eager to cast his 2024 presidential ballot for the Democrat who would be first woman, second Black person and first person of south Asian descent to reach the Oval Office.
"He, like a lot of us, was incredibly gratified by his friend Joe Biden’s courageous choice to pass the torch," the younger Carter said. "You know, my grandfather and The Carter Center have observed more than 100 elections in 40 other countries, right? So, he knows how rare it is for somebody who’s a sitting president to give up power in any context."
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When he's not thinking about politics, the family says Carter has been watching baseball and keeping up with updates about the family farm and Habitat for Humanity.