Many view voting a civic obligation , even in those country where it is not mandatory . People go to not bad lengths to exercise their popular rightfield of choose their representative in government , but sometimes circumstance do n’t make it well-fixed . suppose if you require to vote but you are in space – your close neglect - off locating for your ballot might be more unmanageable to strain than others .
spaceman have been voting in space almost exclusively by proxysince 1971 , and unremarkably without a secret balloting , alternatively justtelling footing controlhow they designate to vote . French astronaut Thomas Pesquet alsovoted from spacein 2017 by giving a French colleague the potency to vote on his behalf . US astronauts , however , vote straight or else , which ask a bit more complexity .
First of all , just like any American away from home , theastronautsneed to fill out a Federal Post Card program to request an absentee voting . With that , the astronauts are leave to fill out an electronic ballot while on get on the ISS .
The balloting are encrypted and uploaded onto the place computer and then transmit to NASA ’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System , which institutionalize the information down to Earth to the ground antenna in White Sands Test Facility .
The data from the antenna is then send to the Johnson Space Center in Houston , Texas . From there , the ballots are pitch electronically to the relevant county clerk for filing . A complicated , but easier ( and cheaper ) way than sustain the vote broadcast up and then back down on ballistic capsule .
It was cosmonaut John Blaha aboard the Russian quad place Mir in 1996 that started this unconscious process . He wanted to vote in the 1996 presidential election . NASA had a plan , but the effort was discontinue by the Secretary of State of Texas , as the state did not yet have a provision for electronic balloting . A greenback to allow that was devolve in 1997 , and spaceman David Wolf later became the first American to vote in an election from space , by voting in Houston ’s 1997 local election .
Since 2004 , with the exception of 2012 , American astronauts have consistently vote from the ISS . During the 2012 election , both American cosmonaut on board , Sunita Williams and Kevin Ford , had submitted their voting before their flight . Williams , who is currently on the ISS , probably did n’t have a chance to do that this year ; her charge was extended fromone workweek to 8 monthsdue to Boeing ’s Starliner spacecraft serial of problems .
The only cosmonaut to have voted from blank space in more than one election isKathleen Rubins , who vote in both 2016 and 2020 .
