Stranded NASA astronauts will vote in the 2024 presidential election from space. Here’s how they’ll cast their ballots.
The astronauts will list their address as “low-Earth orbit” when filling it out.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams's eight-day trip to space in June turned into eight months. And now they'll have to vote in the Nov. 5 presidential election from the International Space Station.
Wilmore told reporters during a press conference from space on Friday that he sent a request for a ballot. “They should get it to us in a couple of weeks,” he said.
“Looking forward to being able to vote from space, which is pretty cool,” Williams added.
They spoke publicly for the first time since the Boeing Starliner capsule returned to Earth last week without them. Wilmore and Williams had to stay behind on the space station after NASA determined it was not safe for them to return on Starliner due to helium leaks and thruster failures.
The astronauts were originally supposed to be in space for just eight days. Now they aren’t scheduled to return back home until February 2025, which means they won’t be able to vote in person at their usual polling station as planned.
However, they are still able to vote — just in orbit. Here’s how it works and how it was made possible in the first place.
??? How do astronauts cast a ballot from space?
Astronauts are typically provided with a standard form similar to U.S. absentee ballots, the space agency explains.
The forms are uplinked to NASA’s Johnson Space Center Mission Control. From there, astronauts can use their unique credentials sent to them by email to access their ballot.
When astronauts fill out their ballots, they list their address as “low-Earth orbit.”
Once their ballot is filled out, it’s then downlinked to Earth to the corresponding county clerk’s office of where they reside.
The ballot is encrypted and “only accessible by the astronaut and the clerk to preserve the vote’s integrity,” NASA says.
????? How did voting from space come about?
Before the International Space Station, U.S. astronauts weren’t away long enough to miss performing their civic duty on Election Day. But in 1996, astronaut John Blaha was serving on Russia's Mir space station, a predecessor to the International Space Station, and couldn’t vote in that year’s election between President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.
Most astronauts live in Houston, Texas, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. So Texas lawmakers at the time took quick action when they learned that Blaha couldn’t participate in the election. In 1997, then-Gov. George W. Bush signed the legislature's bill into law, which states, “A person who meets the eligibility requirements of a voter under the Texas Election Code, Chapter 101, but who will be on a space flight during the early-voting period and on Election Day, may vote.”
