Election Day 2018 Takes Absentee Ballots to the Extreme in Space

[Judi Lynn]

By Meghan Bartels, Space.com Senior Writer | November 6, 2018 07:19am ET

Even the International Space Station has a local polling site, thanks to a Texas law that arranges special absentee ballots for U.S. astronauts who are in orbit on Election Day.

In order to vote from space, astronauts request a special absentee ballot about six months in advance, according to NASA. On the big day, they file their ballot electronically through a protected system. The process has been in use since 1997, when a U.S. astronaut voted from aboard the Russian Space Station Mir, which preceded the International Space Station.

This Election Day, just one U.S. astronaut is aboard the space station, Serena Auñón-Chancellor. She did not respond to a request for comment through NASA's press office about whether she would be voting from space.

A second NASA astronaut expected to be voting from space this year but now isn't. Nick Hague, who was scheduled to fly to the station in October for a six-month stay, told Space.com through a NASA spokesperson that he had requested an absentee ballot in preparation for being off Earth on Election Day.

More:
https://www.space.com/42347-election-2018-space-station-astronauts-voting.html

[SoCalNative]

1. "when a U.S. astronaut voted from aboard the Russian Space Station MIR"

AHA! That explains a lot. It took them a few years but....

[Canoe52]

2. Very suspicious indeed!