NASA astronaut Kate Rubins is voting from space. Instead of relying on the USPS to deliver her ballot, Mission Control in Houston will forward it electronically.
, who has a doctorate in cancer biology from Stanford and was the first person to sequence DNA in space, is currently training for her upcoming six-month mission on the International Space Station.
Voting from the space station is similar to voting absentee from anyplace on the planet — except instead of relying on theto deliver the ballot, Rubins will get hers forwarded electronically from Mission Control in Houston. "Using a set of unique credentials sent to each of them by e-mail, astronauts can access their ballots, cast their votes, and downlink them back down to Earth," the Smithsonian National Air and Space MuseumAmerican astronauts have been able to cast ballots from above for over two decades now, ever since a Texas lawmaker learned that astronaut John Blaha couldn't vote in the 1996 presidential race between President Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.
"He expressed a little bit disappointment in not being able to do that," Republican state Sen. Mike JacksonVoting from space had never really been an issue before then, because NASA astronauts typically spent no more than about two weeks on shuttle missions. But with the advent of the space station, Americans were sometimes on missions for months at a time.
So a new law was born."I can attest to how important one person's vote is, because my first election, I won by seven votes out of over 26,000," Jackson said.
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