Earlier this week, NASA issued an article on how astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) can vote in the upcoming election. Yes, they need to make arrangements like anyone planning to be out of town, but we have a least two astronauts (from Boeing) who did not plan to be on the station during the election.
The process as explained by NASA (and shown below) is as follows:
Just like any other American away from home, astronauts may fill out a Federal Post Card Application to request an absentee ballot. After an astronaut fills out an electronic ballot aboard the orbiting laboratory, the document flows through NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to a ground antenna at the agency’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
From New Mexico, NASA transfers the ballot to the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson and then on to the county clerk responsible for casting the ballot. To preserve the vote’s integrity, the ballot is encrypted and accessible only by the astronaut and the clerk.
According to the Pew Research Center, about 66 percent of voting-eligible population cast a ballot in the 2020 election.
If astronauts can find a way to vote, the rest of us here on Earth have no excuse to miss the election.
Please remember to vote.
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