Casting a vote usually means visiting a polling booth. For NASA astronauts, it means floating in microgravity 400 kilometres above the planet.
Indian-origin astronaut Anil Menon and two other American crew members aboard the International Space Station have successfully voted in the ongoing US midterm elections from space.
The process is entirely digital. The astronauts receive a secure electronic ballot on board, fill it out on a laptop inside the station and transmit it back to election officials on Earth through NASA’s secure communication system.
Menon gave a peek into this unique voting process in a video posted on X on Tuesday. In the clip, he is seen inside his crew quarters, which doubled as a voting booth that day. He said he was voting in the Texas midterm polls.
Explaining the experience, Menon said, “Yes, you can even vote from space! All three US crew members had the privilege of voting from space station. We filled out an electronic ballot and sent it securely to the election officials.”
The video has gone viral on social media, with many users expressing amazement at the astronauts’ ability to vote from orbit. Reacting to the clip, one user joked, “Three astronauts managed to vote from space. Yesterday I spent 40 minutes trying to get my printer to acknowledge a laptop sitting three feet away. I’m applying to NASA. Their technology seems more reliable.” Another quipped that it was the “most extreme ‘I voted’ sticker ever,” while a third wrote, “What? I did not know this. How cool.”
Voting From Space Isn’t New. NASA Has Enabled Orbital Voting Since 1997
Voting from orbit is not new. NASA has had a system in place since 1997, after the Texas Legislature passed a bill allowing astronauts to cast ballots from space, and that same year NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote from orbit while aboard the Mir Space Station, ensuring crew members on long-duration missions do not miss out on elections.
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