The four American astronauts still on board the International Space Station (ISS) cast their ballots in the 2024 U.S. presidential election this Tuesday. Although the process might seem complex, it is actually encrypted and secure.
According to information provided by NASA, astronauts who expect to be away from Earth during election season have a few options. They can request Federal Postcards to submit absentee ballots or coordinate early voting with the office of their county clerk.
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How Do Astronauts Vote? NASA’s Out-of-This-World Voting Process Explained!
Astronauts Don Pettit, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams were all in space for this election and used a voting system that has been in place for space-bound voters since 1997. This system allows them to exercise their democratic right, despite being hundreds of kilometers above Earth. Through a sophisticated communication network, they can securely participate in the democratic process as long as they’re within 1.2 million miles of Earth.
The votes cast from space are transmitted like other data exchanged between the ISS and NASA’s Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
These transmissions are handled by the Near Space Network—a network of antenna systems and relay satellites. Once an astronaut completes an electronic ballot, it travels through NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to a ground station in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
From there, NASA forwards the ballot to the Mission Control Center and then to the responsible county clerk’s office to officially record the vote.
This voting method is also available to NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who launched to the ISS in June on Boeing’s Starliner capsule. However, due to complications with the spacecraft, they’re now expected to remain in space until 2025.
This article was originally written in Spanish by Perla Vallejo in Ecoosfera.