On November 5, the United States will elect a new president between Donald Trump, the former 45th president, and Kamala Harris, the current vice president who took over the baton after Joe Biden was nominated to he is withdrawing from the Democratic Party once again and his term is set to expire on January 20, 2025.
This time voters must be American citizens aged 18 years or older On November 5, 2024, four Americans will not be able to vote in person. Because he is on a mission on the International Space Station He circles the earth at a speed of about 27,000 kilometers per hour from a height of 400 kilometers from the earth.
However, astronauts with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) can vote from space. Texas passed a law allowing astronauts to vote from space in 1997, a year after John Blaha wanted to vote in the 1996 US presidential election but was unable to do so . That state law did not allow astronauts to vote by mail or electronically at the time.
Because the state of Texas is home to the Johnson Space Center. (Houston) Home of NASA’s space missions, from training to research and mission control. As a result, most astronauts live in Texas. and decided to register to vote in that state The above law has allowed NASA astronauts to vote from outer space until now.
David Wolf is the first American to be chosen from space. After voting in local elections in 1997 while working on the Mir space station in Russia, Kate Rubins is the last NASA astronaut to vote in the US presidential election. From the International Space Station As of November 2020
The question is, how do votes from space work?
For the Astronomer’s Vote They must fill out a form to submit their absentee ballot, or Absentee Ballot, just like Americans who are not in the country on Election Day Unlike Astronomers, they must vote to electronics on the International Space Station. Before astronauts’ ballots were encrypted and sent through NASA’s satellite tracking and repeater system (TDRS System) to a receiver dish at the White Sands Test Facility, New Mexico. Instead of carrying ballots by post or various delivery vehicles.
From there, the astronaut’s ballot will be forwarded to the Johnson Space Center. forwarded to the County Clerk at the polling station in the astrologer’s residence. and count the votes with other voters. To be combined in the Electoral College of each state that will be the next vote to elect the president.
Read our 2024 US Election Guide: https://thestandard.co/us-election-2024-guide/
In addition to American astronauts, Russian cosmonauts can also vote while working abroad both through the appointment of representatives on the ground (officials of ROSCOSMOS, the Russian space agency) to vote or to vote electronically, as the cosmonaut French Thomas Pesquet. 2017 presidential election tally from the International Space Station
In the next US presidential election, it is possible that three American astronauts will vote from the moon during the Artemis 4 mission, which is expected to leave Earth as early as September 2028. This would be the first time there was a human being on the surface of another. the planet could vote to elect leaders on Earth from people on the surface.
picture: NASA
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