Watch: Nasa astronaut Anil Menon shows how ISS crew cast ballots from space

NASA Astronauts vote from space

Three Nasa astronauts, including Anil Menon, cast their ballots in the US midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, from aboard the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting more than 400 km above Earth.Menon shared a video on X showing how astronauts can exercise their right to vote while living in space. He said he and fellow Nasa astronauts Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins completed electronic ballots and securely transmitted them to election officials.“Yes, you can even vote from space!” Menon wrote in his post. “All three US crew members had the privilege of voting from space station. We filled out an electronic ballot and sent it securely to the election officials.”

Nasa Administrator Jared Isaacman also praised the astronauts for participating in the November 3 elections despite being hundreds of kilometres above Earth.In the 29-second video, Menon, wearing an ‘I voted’ sticker, showed his sleeping compartment, which doubled as his polling booth.“Inside of it is my computer, where I was able to fill out an electronic form and send it to Harris County so I could vote today,” he said.Menon submitted his ballot to Harris County, Texas, which is home to Nasa’s Johnson Space Center and Mission Control. According to the Associated Press, Delaney and Watkins also voted using the same process.Menon reached the ISS on July 14 aboard a Russian Soyuz mission, while Delaney and Watkins arrived on October 1 aboard a SpaceX rocket.The voting process uses Nasa’s Near Space Network, managed by the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland. Ballots are encrypted and transmitted securely, with access restricted to the astronaut and the relevant election clerk to protect the integrity of the vote.US astronauts have been voting from space since 1997, when Texas passed legislation permitting citizens in orbit to participate in elections. Nasa astronaut David Wolf became the first to use the provision, casting his ballot from Russia’s Mir space station.The US midterm elections are being held to elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 37 members of the Senate, 36 state governors and several local representatives.Meanwhile, the US Justice Department deployed around 1,000 election monitors and observers across all 50 states, describing it as the largest monitoring effort in its history. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K Dhillon defended the deployment, saying the department was pursuing election transparency in an “assertive and nondiscriminatory manner”.