Published 11:48 IST, October 23rd 2020
US elections 2020: Astronaut Rubins votes from International Space Station; here's how
“It’s same form military members and their families fill out while serving outside of the US," NASA explained as astronaut cast ballot for US elections 2020.
On October 22, NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins cast her ballot for 2020 using a secure electronic ballot dispatched to the International Space Station (ISS) some 200 miles away from the Earth. In a post shared by NASA’s Astronaut Twitter account, the astronaut in space for a 6-month stay was seen standing in front of a makeshift “ISS voting booth” ahead of the US elections. “From the International Space Station: I voted today,” astronaut Rubins wrote, which was retweeted by NASA.
In a release, NASA explained that it sent a few absentee ballots to the NASA astronauts living and working aboard the International Space Station ahead of US’ November’s elections. The exception was made as the cosmonauts and astronauts were bound for long haul missions that lasted for months, therefore, NASA arranged for Federal Postcard Application or FPCA in the space.
“It’s the same form military members and their families fill out while serving outside of the US. By completing it ahead of their launch, space station crew members signal their intent to participate in an election from space,” NASA explained. Because NASA’s astronauts hail from different states in the US, they also had the option to cast a ballot as residents of their home states having their counties make a special arrangement to vote in space post-FPCA approval.
How did the astronaut vote?
For astronaut Kat Rubin to vote this election 2020 as she had in the 2016 elections, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston has dispatched a test ballot for the astronaut through the county clerk that manages the election in her home state. Then, a space station training computer is used to fill it out and later send it back to the county clerk by Mission Control. “After a successful test, a secure electronic ballot generated by the Clerk’s office of Harris County and surrounding counties in Texas is uplinked by Johnson’s Mission Control Center to the voting crew member,” NASA informed.
The County Clerk also sent an email to the astronaut with her crew member-specific credentials which allow her to access the secure ballot onboard ISS. The other NASA astronauts who were earlier expected to depart into space on Crew-1 scheduled for Oct. 31originally were also going to cast a ballot in space. However, the launch having deferred to mid-November, the other astronauts would now cast vote from the Earth on election day.
Updated 11:47 IST, October 23rd 2020