Like millions of other Americans, astronaut Kate Rubins voted early in the 2020 election. Unlike her fellow citizens, however, Kate’s feet weren’t exactly on American soil.
Kate is a flight engineer on Expedition 64, part of a three-person crew which launched from southern Kazakhstan on Oct. 14 (her 42nd birthday) bound for the International Space Station. Her return to Earth is scheduled in April of next year.
That means that on Nov. 3, Election Day, Kate will be floating in space 250 miles above Earth — which, it turns out, is no excuse for sitting this one out.
Kate is the latest American astronaut to be off the planet but eligible to vote thanks to a 1997 Texas law that includes “low Earth orbit” as an allowable address on absentee ballots. (The majority of NASA employees, astronauts included, live in Texas, which is home to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.)
Turns out, voting from space is easy.
The process begins one year before launch, when astronauts are asked as part of standard mission planning which local, state and federal elections they would like to vote in should the mission conflict. Astronauts then request an absentee ballot, which lists their residence as “low Earth orbit”.
After launch, Mission Control beams a secure digital version of the ballot to the International Space Station for the astronaut to fill out and send back to Earth. Mission Control then passes on the completed, sealed ballot to the appropriate county clerk in time to be counted.
For her vote, Kate built a voting booth and live-streamed her entering it and exiting. It’s something other astronauts have done, including Russian cosmonauts voting in their country’s elections.
Nicole Slott, a retired American astronaut, voted from the ISS in 2009.
“It works great,” she recently told a Florida radio station. The only drawback, she says, is she never got the coveted “I Voted” sticker.
“Maybe I’ll send Kate an email and say, ‘make yourself one if you don’t already have one,’” she said.
Kate’s mission coincides with the 20th anniversary of continuous human presence on board the ISS. She will be on board to greet the crew of SpaceX Crew-1 mission, the first full-length commercial flight to dock on the ISS, when it arrives after its rescheduled launch in November.
Born in 1978, Kate grew up in Napa, Calif. Fascinated with science, in seventh grade she flew to Huntsville, Ala., to attend Space Camp at the US Space and Rocket Center Museum on the grounds of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in cancer biology from Stanford University. Her undergraduate research was on HIV and other infectious diseases; her most recent research with the US Army and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) helped to develop therapies for Ebola, among other viral diseases.
Kate was accepted into NASA in July 2009, graduating from Astronaut Candidate Training for the International Space Station systems, robotics, physiological training, T038 flight training, and water and wilderness survival.
Her first mission to space launched on July 7, 2016 on board the new Soyuz MS spacecraft, part of a three-person international crew. On that mission, which lasted 115 days, she became the first person to sequence DNA in space (from a mouse), important research that could lead to identifying other life in the universe.
Kate is the 60th American woman in space, and just one of several American astronauts to vote while in orbit.
“I think it’s really important for everybody to vote,” Kate told the Associated Press. “If we can do it from space, then I believe folks can do it from the ground, too.”
If you have not yet returned a mail-in or absentee ballot, PLEASE do not mail it. Given delays with the US Postal Service (which I can vouch for personally), ballots mailed now may not be received in time to be counted. It is now best either to hand in your ballot personally at your local voting site or use a board of elections drop box. Otherwise, vote in person either early or on Nov. 3 — and if you have a mail-in ballot, bring it to the polling place with you so your vote can be reconciled on the spot.