Millions of Americans head to the polls in the US today, but there are a select few who face a unique challenge when casting their vote: not being on Earth.
That's the situation American astronauts on board the International Space Station find themselves in for any election, including today's presidential showdown. However, thanks to a combination of legislation passed by Texas in 1997 and good preparation by NASA, voting in space has been possible for decades. Two such votes were cast in the past couple of weeks.
The first American astronaut to vote while orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour was David Wolf in 1997 from the Russian Mir Space Station. The most recent are Kate Rubins, who voted from the ISS last week before safely returning to Earth, and Shane Kimbrough, who is still circling the Earth and filed his electronic absentee ballot in the past few days.
Voting in space requires a year of preparation. Twelve months before launch, each astronaut must choose which elections they wish to participate in while outside of Earth's atmosphere. These include local, state, and federal elections. Then, six months before launch, a "Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request – Federal Post Card Application" must be completed. The listed address on the ballot is "low earth orbit," as Kate Rubins explains in a video recorded while aboard ISS.
As Commander Edward Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer and Science Officer Greg Chamitoff explained while voting from ISS back in 2008, "a secure electronic ballot, generated by the Harris and Brazoria County Clerk's office, is uplinked by NASA's Johnson Space Center Mission Control Center. An e-mail with crew member-specific credentials is sent from the County Clerk to the crew member. These credentials allow the crew member to access the secure ballot."
The secure ballot is then downlinked and emailed to the County Clerk's Office.
As NASA points out, while voting from space may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the astronauts do lose out as they don't get an "I Voted" sticker. I think I'd be able to cope with that disappointment as I floated around looking down on Earth.
