Texans have been able to vote from space for nearly two decades, NASA says
If you thought your polling place was far, consider this: One American sent his vote in while floating 250 miles above the Earth.
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, currently aboard the International Space Station, is the most recent American to cast his ballot while speeding around the globe at 17,000 miles per hour — but he’s not the first.
Voting while floating, according to a NASA Tumblr post, was first instituted in 1997, when NASA astronaut David Wolf cast his vote while on Russia’s Mir Space Station. Other astronauts have since followed in this fine tradition, including Expedition 18 Commander Michael Fincke and flight engineer Gregory Chamitoff in 2008.
For space-farers, voting is an extended process that starts a year before launch, according to the agency. That’s when astronauts choose which elections they want to participate in (whether federal, state and/or local). Then, six months out, they’re given the excitingly named “Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request – Federal Post Card Application.”
And yes, according to NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, her ballot listed her location as “low-Earth orbit.” Rubins returned to Earth in late October, but had gotten an absentee ballot just in case her touchdown was delayed past election day.
“It’s very incredible that we’re able to vote from up here and I think it’s incredibly important for us to vote in all of the elections and so yes, I definitely do plan on voting,” the astronaut said in a recent video for the “Space to Ground” web series.
There is one caveat: Since the legislation allowing people to vote from space was passed in Texas, it applies only to residents of the Lone Star State. But the agency’s human spaceflight efforts are centered at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and most astronauts live in Texas anyway.
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