Two American astronauts stranded in space said Friday they plan to vote in the presidential election from space. Astronaut Butch Wilmore told reporters during a call, "I sent down my request for a ballot today."
He said, "It’s a very important role that we play as citizen including those elections, and NASA makes it very easy for us to do that."
His colleague, Sunita Williams, said "It’s a very important duty that we have as citizens and looking forward to being able to vote from space, which is pretty cool."
The astronauts will make their choices via an interactive PDF that is password protected to ensure secrecy. Election officials in Texas are working with NASA to make it happen.
A spokesperson for the Harris County clerk told NBC this week, "Before sending the astronauts their ballot, it is transferred to a fillable document so that they can make their selections, save it, and send it back. A test ballot with a unique password is always sent first. Once they vote on their live ballot, it is returned, printed, and processed with other ballots."
The first American astronaut to vote from space was David Wolf in 1997, who was aboard Russia’s Mir space station at the time. Astronaut Kate Rubins voted from the International Space Station in 2020.
The two astronauts have been stuck at the ISS since June, when the Boeing Starliner that brought them there suffered serious problems midflight. They won’t be able to return to Earth until February, when they plan to return in a SpaceX capsule.