These Americans Are Determined to Cast a Last Ballot Before Dying

Her ballot did arrive, on Tuesday. She filled it out — casting her vote not only for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, but for Sara Gideon, the Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Susan Collins — and a friend drove her the two miles to the York town hall to drop it off.

There are several reasons the very old can be determined to vote, said Dr. Barry K. Baines, a palliative care physician in Minneapolis who is an authority on ethical wills, the documenting of one’s values and life lessons for those left behind.

People in their late 80s and 90s today, Dr. Baines said, belong to the Greatest Generation, who grew up during World War II. “At its core, this was the most civic-minded generation,” he said. “If you’re an American, you vote because you have the freedom to vote. So that generation has a sense of how effective one person’s vote can be.”

Also, Dr. Baines said, only the human species possesses what he called a transcendent dimension. “That’s an awareness that life goes on after we’re gone and that we can do things that will be remembered,” he said. “Voting is one of those things. The idea is, ‘I might not be around for what happens after the votes are counted, but at least I know that I put a footprint in the future.’”