Like all U.S. spaceflyers since 1997, NASA astronauts Michael Fincke and Gregory Chamitoff were able to vote in their local and national elections thanks to a handy Texas state law that ensures their ballots can be counted, even from space, 220 miles above the Earth.
“So I’m going to exercise my privilege as a citizen and actually vote from space on Election Day,” Fincke, the space station’s Expedition 18 commander, told SPACE.com before he left Earth. “I think the candidates this year are exciting in and of themselves. But hopefully we get people to realize what a privilege it is, and they exercise and get a chance to vote.”
Only four Americans in NASA’s 50-year history have voted from space, largely because the Texas law allowing was passed just 11 years ago, said Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters, a spokesperson with NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. And just one of those four, now-retired spaceflyer Leroy Chiao, voted during a presidential election in 2004 while commanding the space station’s Expedition 10 crew.
Read the rest of the article at: [Space.com].
