Voting From the ISS Is a Cinch. Mars? Not So Much

(gentle piano music)

[Narrator] A lot of polling places had long lines,

but not here.

Astronaut Shane Kimbrough is the most recent American

to have cast a ballot from low Earth orbit.

He's on the International Space Station some 200 miles

above the earth.

The ballots get sent up just like ice cream.

(laughs) You don't get a freeze-dried ballot.

It's a little less fun than that,

it's all done electronically.

[Narrator] Okay fine, so not like ice cream, but still,

the polling place has a pretty sweet view.

Fellow astronaut Kate Rubins, who returned to Earth

last week, also voted from the ISS.

There's actually some fantastic folks on the ground

that get me an absentee ballot before I launched,

and it got sent to my home address,

and the absentee ballot address is low Earth orbit.

[Narrator] Rubins and Kimbrough exercised their rights

thanks to a Texas law that allows astronauts,

most of whom live in the state when earthbound,

to do what NASA calls, vote while they float.

The County Clerk Office for whichever county

they reside in generates a ballot, it's given to

mission control, who uplink it electronically.

The astronauts then get a special code from the

County Clerk Office that allows them to access

their personal ballot, and gets sent back down to

mission control, and then delivered to that

County Clerk's Office.

[Narrator] But now, NASA is gearing up to send people

all the way to Mars.

There's a very good chance that those first crew members

that make the trip to Mars,

and there's an American among them,

they'll be gone during an election season, most likely,

because your trip to Mars is gonna be

about a two to three year range.

[Narrator] But what happens when people begin to

settle Mars permanently?

[Dan] There's a whole world of space legislature that'll

be explored as we begin living in space more permanently.

[Narrator] But if those laws do work out,

Martian-Americans should vote early.

Transmission from Mars to Earth can take

20 minutes or longer.

And if you want to show off your vote,

better pack your own I voted sticker ahead of time.

One of the drawbacks about having to vote in space,

you don't have to wait in line, but you don't get a sticker.

(musical finale)