NASA Astronaut casts vote on Earth from International Space Station

An astronaut who is currently a resident of International Space Station cast his ballot on Earth on November 5. Astronaut Andrew Morgan reportedly voted while being 250 miles away from the planet with the joint efforts of the NASA team along with Lawrence County, Pennsylvania’s department of voter services. Morgan was a registered voter and mailed an absentee ballot application in the spring itself, requesting that his location would be NASA's Space Station in the orbit on the Election Day. 

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Morgan voted securely

Director of Lawrence County voting services Ed Allison was reportedly unsure about his move. However, he proceeded with making phone calls to NASA to discuss arrangements for a secure vote. To keep the vote confidential, the County's director of IT had developed a secure email address and password. Along with that, a 'fillable PDF' was created for the astronaut's ballot by clicking on the circle in front of the candidate he was wishing to vote for. First, the email was sent to Morgan to cast the vote, followed by the password which was only owned by him. According to some media reports, the entire process of Morgan's casting of the vote took 30 days. Morgan also left a note to Allison thanking him for facilitating his vote from the Space Station. According to a law passed in Texas in 1997, the astronauts have the right to vote from space. 

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Not the first time

This was not the first time that residents of orbit took part in the earthly activities and applauded the events taking place down here. NASA astronauts celebrated the World Series which is the annual championship league of Baseball by playing baseball in space. Christina H Koch, Jessica Meir, and Andrew Morgan are currently the residents of International Space Station for various research programs. However, they did not stay behind to celebrate the ongoing Fall Classic and the astronauts were reportedly anticipating the game between Washington Nationals and Houston Astros. Jessica Meir shared the image saying that the game found its way to the Space Station while the video of the three crew members playing baseball in the space lab was also shared by the official page for the coverage of World Series.

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(With inputs from agencies)