How NASA Astronauts Vote From Space

A NASA astronaut voted for the U.S. presidential elections from lower Earth orbit. Shane Kimbrough is at the International Space Station. The voting process for those who are in space starts early, exactly one year before the actual elections.

The commander of the Expedition 49/50 crew of the orbiting space lab can vote while in space due to special procedures that were legislated by Texas lawmakers in the late 90s since most NASA astronauts live in Texas and obtain their training from the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA officials revealed that this voting process for astronauts begins one year before a launch so that astronauts can choose how they can vote their local, state, and federal candidates while in space. Around six months before the elections, they are provided with a standard form known as "Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request - Federal Post Card Application."

 Another cool fact is that during the time when astronauts have their absentee ballots, their listed address will be "low-Earth orbit," according to NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who just completed a four-month mission to the ISS last month.

This year, Kimbrough and Rubins participated and used this voting system from the space station.

These official absentee ballot forms are transmitted using a digital form from mission control at the NASA Johnson Space Center. The astronauts fill them up and beam them back to Earth, where voting authorities await their ballots at the NASA JSC control center.

NASA astronauts started voting from space in 1997 at the time when humans began living and working in the space lab. The first American astronaut who voted from space is David Wolf, while he was at the Russian space station, Mir.