How Astronauts Are Casting Their Midterm Votes From Space
For some Americans, the process of casting their ballot is a little more complex than heading to the local school or library.
NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli, along with fellow astronauts Anil Menon, Jessica Watkins, and Luke Delaney, have been able to cast their midterm votes while orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Menon, who launched aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft in July, described his room as "doubling as a voting booth," where he filled out an electronic ballot and sent it to Harris County, Texas—the home of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
The process of voting from space has been possible since 1997, when Texas passed a bill allowing NASA astronauts to cast ballots from orbit. The first American astronaut to vote from space was David Wolf, who did so aboard the Mir Space Station in 1997.
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