An 82-year-old Texas woman named Gracie Lou Phillips voted for the first time in her life Thursday before dying in hospice care Monday.
Phillips had never voted before due to a focus on family life and misconceptions about political participation, said her granddaughter, Leslie Rene Moore, but she wanted to push back on the hostility of modern politics. With a family member's aid, she went to a polling station for early voting, oxygen tank in tow, and was able to vote curbside with the help of election volunteers.
"She kept telling everybody 'I'm voting. I'm going to vote this year, and my vote counts,'" said another granddaughter, Michelle Phillips. "To have someone literally need oxygen to breathe, pure tank of oxygen to breathe, put it in her car and ask to go [vote] on what may very well be the last week of her life, that shows the dedication and priority that people need to look at."
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