Election Day reached beyond Earth this year.
Three NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station cast ballots in the 2026 midterm elections, with astronaut Anil Menon sharing a look at his orbital voting setup on Tuesday, Nov. 3. His polling place? The same small compartment where he sleeps.
In a video posted to X, Menon showed how he used his computer to complete an electronic ballot and send it to Harris County, Texas. Fellow astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney also voted from the station.
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“We filled out an electronic ballot and sent it securely to the election officials,” Menon wrote.
So how does a vote get from orbit to an election office? It takes a few more stops than a trip to the mailbox.
According to NASA, astronauts can request an absentee ballot using a Federal Post Card Application. Once completed aboard the station, their electronic ballot travels through the agency’s Near Space Network, which also carries other communications between the station and Earth.
The ballot passes through NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to a ground antenna in New Mexico, then heads to Mission Control in Houston before reaching the appropriate county clerk. NASA says the ballot is encrypted and accessible only to the astronaut and the clerk.
This isn’t a new Election Day workaround. Texas lawmakers cleared the way for astronauts to vote from orbit in 1997. That year, NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to do so while aboard Russia’s Mir space station.
Nearly three decades later, the space station’s sleeping quarters are still pulling double duty for democracy.
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