WADSWORTH, Ohio — Voting is on the top of Penny Studd’s priority list.

“Mainly because of my heritage, how proud my parents were to become Americans,” Studd said.

Studd, 63, said that is exactly why she had to get to the polls Tuesday to cast her vote.

She said her father, who came to America in 1925 from Germany, was a WWII vet and instilled in her in a young age the importance of voting.

But late last week, the Wadsworth woman, who suffers from brain cancer, learned she may not get to vote. It would have been the first election she ever missed.

She even voted when she and her husband, who was in the Air Force, was stationed in Japan.

She is bedridden and her husband, Jim, tried to mail in her absentee ballot. But the form was rejected because Penny is unable to sign her name.

“He (a board of elections worker) said I needed a special power of attorney because the medical or financial one wouldn’t work, and he said it was probably too late now,” said Jim.

But it turns out, it wasn’t too late. Hospice of Akron General and Penny’s family got an ambulance to take her to the polls.

Penny and her family said they are extremely thankful to everyone that helped make her vote count.

“This is your responsibility,” Penny said. “If I can’t vote I not only let myself down, I let God down.”

And that didn’t happen. Penny earned her sticker, which she wore proudly.