Former US president Jimmy Carter, 100, casts vote

Former US president Jimmy Carter has cast his vote in this year's US presidential election, 15 days after turning 100.

It fulfils an earlier declared wish to live long enough to back Kamala Harris in the poll.

The former Democratic leader "voted by mail," according to the Carter Center, the non-profit organisation that he founded after he left the White House in 1981 to pursue his vision of world diplomacy.

The centenarian - who ended his term under a cloud of unpopularity but has seen his star rise since - took advantage of early voting in his home state of Georgia, where he is receiving hospice care.

Mr Carter had told his family earlier this year that living long enough to vote for Ms Harris and help defeat her Republican rival, Donald Trump, was more important to him than his centennial, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

In the end, he reached both milestones.

More than 420,000 people have cast their ballots since early voting began yesterday in Georgia, according to state election official Gabriel Sterling.

Election Day is Tuesday 5 November.

Mr Carter, a one-term president, has been receiving end-of-life care in his hometown of Plains in Georgia since February of last year.

He is the first 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.