You astronauts who were part of the crew of Boeing’s Starliner, and the other scientists who are on board of the International Space Station (ISS) have the right to vote in the US elections guaranteed even while in Earth orbit — hundreds of kilometers from voting booths on the ground.
The election of the new president and vice president of the United States will take place on November 5, at which time US scientists who are staying on the ISS will also be able to vote.
In 1997, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that allowed voting from space. NASA astronaut David Wolf made the first attempt, becoming the first American to cast a ballot in orbit on the Mir Space Station.
In a 2020 publicationNASA explained that the transmission of this information is done through the North American agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) infrastructure.
Like other data shared between Earth and the ISS, the astronauts’ vote passes from a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to a ground antenna at the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, United States.
The ballot leaves the US state for the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and is then sent to the county clerk responsible for the vote. To ensure the secrecy of the vote, only the astronaut and that clerk have access to the document.
This content was originally published in Stuck in space: astronauts will vote from space in the US elections on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil

Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.