ETROIT - When women got the right to vote in 1920, Ada Dieters's father beamed. Good, he told his three daughters and his wife; now we have five votes for the Republicans.
Dieters, who was 21 when she became one of the first women to vote in a US presidential election, turned 101 last week.
In all that time, she never broke rank with her family and has voted for Republicans in every presidential election.
With her first vote, Dieters said she chose Warren G. Harding, who trounced his opponent, James Middleton Cox, a Democrat.
But, she said, partisan politics was never as important to her as simply having a voice in the process.
This year is no exception: An absentee ballot is displayed like a precious curio on a chest of drawers in her room at the Waltonwood Assisted Living Residence in Rochester Hills, Mich.
This will be Dieters's 21st presidential election, and, yes, she's voting for George W. Bush.
''There's a thrill to voting,'' she said. ''I'll never forget my first voting day. It was a party from morning till night.''
Deters said she could not understand why anyone would choose not to vote.
''You're giving away your last bit of independence,'' she said.
