Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams. (File Photo)
The United States will vote for its 47th president on November 5 and the country has ensured that every citizen gets the opportunity to vote including the astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who are stuck in Space.
NASA ensured that both astronauts manages to vote in the US Presidential elections even though both Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are in space.
To ensure that no US citizens in space misses out to vote, NASA has an absentee voting system for astronauts. This voting system is similar to the absentee voting system, which is used by the people who cannot ote at their polling station assigned to them.
In order to request an absentee ballot, astronauts in space have to complete a Federal Post Card Application. The ballot is transmitted between the space station and Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. Then NASA sends the ballot to its test facility in New Mexico using the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, which will be transmitted to Johnson Space Center. The vote will be finalised by the astronaut's county clerk.
The ballot is encrypted and will be accessible only to the astronaut.
The first astronaut to vote from space was David Wolf in 1997 and the last astronaut to vote from space was Kate Rubins in 2020 US Elections.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
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