BOSTON -- For the 93-year-old matriarch of a Foxborough, Mass., man's family, voting in this year's presidential election was so important that it was, literally the last thing she ever did.

Dora Fitzgerald's son, Terry, said his mother, who had a worsening heart condition, hung on long enough to be able to cast an absentee ballot from her bed in North Charleston, S.C., on Oct. 8, then died an hour later.

He said his sister worried that Dora might not live long enough to vote in November, so she sent away for an absentee ballot, which Dora signed and mailed with the help of one of his siblings, the Attleborough Sun Chronicle reported.

Fitzgerald said his mother became feistier and more politically opinionated as she grew older, and had celebrated her 91st birthday with a hot air balloon ride in South Carolina, where she had moved to be close to some of her children.

Who did Dora vote for? She cast her ballot for Barack Obama who, her children said, she had taken a liking to during the election season.

It's unclear whether her ballot will count in South Carolina. In Massachusetts, the Chronicle reported, the absentee ballot of someone who died before Election Day would not be valid.