Washington (AFP)
Four American astronauts who will soon fly to the International Space Station (ISS) will vote from up there for the November 3 presidential election that will decide President Donald Trump from Democratic candidate Joe Biden, a possibility that has existed for more than twenty years .
"We all plan to vote from space," Shannon Walker, who will fly to the ISS with two other Americans and a Japanese aboard a SpaceX rocket on Tuesday, said at a conference on Tuesday. NASA press.
"NASA works very well with the various electoral bodies, because we all live in different counties. It was easier for us to say that we will vote from space," added the astronaut.
Another American, Kate Rubins, who will reach the ISS by a Russian rocket in mid-October, said last week that she too would vote from the ISS, with a mail-in ballot, an option that tens of millions otherwise have. of voters on the ground are expected to use this year because of the pandemic.
Voting rules in the United States vary from state to state and often from county to county, but in Texas, where American astronauts are based, a law was passed in 1997 to explicitly provide for the voting procedure from space.
Since 2000, the ISS has been permanently occupied by Americans and Russians, who usually stay there for six months.
Election authorities in the Houston area, where the Johnson Space Center is located, have created electronic and encrypted ballots that are sent to astronauts via NASA.
By email, astronauts also receive unique identifiers allowing them to access the bulletin, complete it and send it back to Earth, to county authorities, according to the Air and Space Museum.
The procedure is practically the same as for other Americans who vote by mail, with one major difference: the address filled in by the crew is "low earth orbit".
© 2020 AFP