US Elections 2020: NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins Votes From International Space Station, Shares Selfie (View Pic)
Washington, October 23: Kate Rubins, an astronaut of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), exercised her right to franchise despite being 253 miles or roughly 408 kilometres away from the Earth's surface. She clicked a voting selfie, and the picture was uploaded earlier in the day on the social media handle of NASA. US Elections 2020: 20% Polling Completed, Over 50 Million Americans Have 'Voted Early', Says Monitor.
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The electoral laws in America permit absentee ballots or mail-in ballots for voters to exercise their right to franchise from remote locations. An amendment to the law was made in 1997, allowing astronauts based at the International Space Station (ISS) to also cast their votes.
Like other forms of absentee voting, voting from space starts with a Federal Postcard Application, or FPCA. It’s the same form military members and their families fill out while serving outside of the US. By completing it ahead of their launch, space station crew members signal their intent to participate in an election from space.
The vote of Rubins was registered after the clerk's office in Harris County, home of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, sent up an electronically secure ballot via email to the ISS. The same was filled by her digitally and downlinked to the clerk's office.
'I Voted Today': Kate Rubins Shares Pic of Her Voting Selfie
From the International Space Station: I voted today
— Kate Rubins pic.twitter.com/DRdjwSzXwy
— NASA Astronauts (@NASA_Astronauts) October 22, 2020
Rubins is the only American on the space mission that departed from Kazakhstan to the ISS on October 14. Before leaving, the astronaut had told reporters that she would be registering her mandate in the presidential elections from the space.
"If we can do it from space then I believe folks can do it from the ground too," she had said. The accomplished astronaut was justified in posing the question as this was not the first time she voted from the space. In the crucial 2016 elections as well, Rubins had similarly voted via the absentee ballot from the ISS.
