US Election: How Astronauts Cast Vote
Washington DC, US: As Democrat candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump are on a razor-edged Presidential race, every vote matter. Even the nearly 100-year-old former US President Jimmy Carter rushed to cast his vote. And the astronauts also not exempted.
NASA has established a streamlined process for astronauts to cast their votes. The astronauts will complete their ballots on the space station’s computer systems. These secure, encrypted votes travel via satellite to New Mexico ground stations before reaching Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
From the space centre, NASA forwards the electronic ballots to the relevant Texas county clerk’s office for processing, said AP news agency.
Also Read: US Election: How Votes Are Counted; When Will We Know Who Won
The four NASA astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station arranged for absentee ballots before Election Day. However, NASA has left it to the individual astronauts to disclose whether they exercised their right to vote from orbit.
The four include, Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Also Read: Explainer: How US Election Works, How President Is Elected
During a television interview last month, Space Station Commander Sunitha Williams stated that all four would participate in voting. “It’s a civic duty. It’s the right thing to do,” she said. Williams also supported Kamala Harris during the message.
Since 1997, American astronauts have had the ability to vote whilst in space.
As of Sunday, Kamala Harris has a slight edge over Trump, as per national polling average. However, the seven swing states is giving a nail-biting competition. The neck-on-neck race in the swing states make media outlets vary of projecting the winner. They wait longer to announce the who has won.
Also Read: What Is A Swing State? How Harris, Trump Plan To Turn Tables
In US election, the popular vote does not define the winner, but rather the votes from electoral college decides who wins Presidency. With 538 electoral colleges, a candidate must secure 270 electoral votes to be the President.
