Today is Election Day in the United States, and people all over the country are lining up in polling places to cast their votes. What's more, Americans around the world are also voting via absentee ballots.
But what about Americans not on this this world?
That's the case for NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Kevin Ford, the two Americans currently on the crew of the International Space Station. So how are they able to vote? Well, if they wanted to vote from the space station, they can, thanks to a Texas law that passed in 1997. Since most astronauts live around Houston, the County Clerk sends a ballot to Mission Control in Houston. The astronaut then casts their vote.
"They send it back to Mission Control," NASA spokesman Jay Bolden told Space.com. "It's a secure ballot that is then sent directly to the voting authorities."
This system has been used several times so far. The first orbital voter was astronaut David Wolf in 1997 while he was on board the Mir Space Station.
This year, though, the system wasn't necessary. Both Williams and Ford voted by ordinary, Earth-bound absentee ballot while they were stationed in Russia awaiting a Soyuz to take them to the space station.
