From 2019, his longevity explained in his own words:
"I think the best explanation for that is to marry the best spouse: someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you and keep you alive and interested in life," Carter told People.”
When Carter was just starting out in politics, the ballot stuffers were so naive (or so confident?) that all the dead people who voted against him did so in alphabetical order.
> I decided to run for office in 1962, after the Supreme Court ruled in Baker v. Carr that all votes had to be weighted as equally as possible. This resulted in the termination of Georgia’s “county unit” system, where some rural votes equaled 100 votes in urban areas.
> Pennington learned that 117 voters had allegedly lined up in exact alphabetical order to cast their ballots. Many were dead, in prison, or living in distant places.
and, when Carter went to the legislature after having been elected:
> I remember that one floor amendment was proposed by a senator from Enigma ... that would "prohibit any citizen from casting a ballot in a primary or general election who has been dead more than three years."
Carter simply didn't grasp the nature of the economic situation of his times. But he was a good and decent man; one of the best to ever sit in the Oval Office. Shows that decency and competence don't necessarily go together.
I believe that also makes him the most famous centenarian, ... except perhaps second to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother? So the most famous living centenarian?
"I think the best explanation for that is to marry the best spouse: someone who will take care of you and engage and do things to challenge you and keep you alive and interested in life," Carter told People.”
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/10/15/jimmy-carter-credits-liv...