Field voting booth on the International Space Station (ISS) in the 2020 US presidential election
A pair of American astronauts are in a state of involuntary residence in space as their trip, originally planned for only 8 days, is now at least 7 months long due to problems related to the Starliner spacecraft.
For NASA, holding elections 250 miles above the Earth is nothing new. NASA held an election on the ISS 27 years ago, when Texas passed a law allowing voting from space.
Because NASA is headquartered in Houston, nearly every American astronaut is a Texas voter.
The difference this time is that neither Wilmore nor Williams were originally scheduled to be on the ISS on Election Day, November 5. The Starliner returned earlier this month without its passengers.
"I submitted a request to get my ballot today," Wilmore said in a phone call with reporters earlier. "As an American citizen, voting is incredibly important to me, and NASA makes it easy for me to do so," the astronaut said, according to The Hill on September 23.
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Harris County, Texas, election officials announced they have partnered with NASA to send ballots to astronauts in PDF format. The PDF is password-protected, ensuring that the ballot is confidential.
The first astronaut to vote in space was David Wolf, when he was aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1997.
Four other American astronauts currently on the ISS will not vote from space. Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson returns to Earth on September 23. Colleagues Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps will leave the ISS on October 6.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/mac-ket-trong-khong-gian-hai-phi-hanh-gia-my-bau-tong-thong-nhu-the-nao-185240924093820933.htm
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