Earlier this week, NASA announced that astronaut Kate Rubins had officially cast her vote from a mobile polling booth aboard the International Space Station. As we would like to believe that her ballot came back to Earth in a tiny rocket, the transmission itself was far different. It was originally sent to her county clerk as a PDF.
As NASA explains, voting from space begins in the same way as voting abroad. Astronauts, like military members and other American citizens living abroad, must first submit a Federal Postcard Application (FPCA) to request an absentee ballot. Once approved, they can blow up knowing that their ballot will soon follow.
After the astronaut’s county clerk completed a human-oriented tour at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, they can begin the real voting process. The astronaut will then receive two electronic documents: a password-protected ballot sent by the Space Center mission control center, and an email with the password entered by the county clerk. The astronaut then “downlinks” (sending via satellite signal) their full ballot back to the Space Center’s servers, who forward it to the county clerk. Since the clerk needs a password to open the ballot, they are the only other person who can see the astronaut’s answers. Then, as NPR reports, they copy the votes on a regular paper ballot and submit it with the rest.
Although Americans have been visiting a place for more than half a century, the youngsters were not long enough to need to establish a voting system from orbit. That changed in 1996, when John Blaha missed out on voting in the general election because his spacelight started to the Russian space station Mir in September – before voters got away. present their ballot – and did not return until January 1997. So, as The Washington Post reports, NASA officials collaborated with Texas government officials to enforce a law that would allow astronauts to cast their ballots from space. In the fall of 1997, David Wolf was the first astronaut to cast his vote from a space station. The law is unique to Texas in that it is inhabited by the most active astronauts, but NASA has said the process can be carried out from other states if needed.