NASA has confirmed that NASA astronaut and aerospace engineer Kate Robins is planning to vote from the International Space Station, where she will be stationed during the voting period.
Robins and two Russian astronauts will Spend six months in space as part of the Expedition 63/64 crew. When launched in October, Robins will research “the use of laser-cooled atoms for future quantum sensors” and conduct cardiovascular experiments from the space station.
But she will make time to vote, too. NASA said it cast its vote from space in 2016, when it was looking again at the space station. (During the 2016 spaceflight, I became a The first person to do a DNA sequence in space.)
How to Vote from Space
Astronauts registered to vote in Texas gained the right to vote from space in 1997, when Texas lawmakers decided that they could electronically cast their ballots outside of Earth if they were on a space flight during the early voting period or Election Day, according to Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. NASA’s Johnson Space Center is located in Houston, so most of the astronauts are in the city and registered to vote in Harris County, where Houston is located.
The process of voting in space It works like thisNASA told CNN: The Harris County Clerks office is uploading a secure electronic ballot to the NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Control. NASA astronauts, using specific credentials, access their ballot papers and cast their votes, which are delivered back to the county clerk’s office via email.
CNN has reached out to the Harris County Clerk Office’s Election Division for more information on how interstellar voting works in 2020 and awaits a response.
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