It's Election Day for millions of Texas voters, but that doesn't mean you have to be in Texas — or even on Earth — to have your vote counted. Four NASA astronauts are using electronic ballots this election cycle to vote from the International Space Station,

NASA astronauts up in space can vote through an absentee ballot or early voting in coordination with the county clerk's office where they live. But how is that even possible?

A Texas law passed in 1997 enabled astronauts to vote from space, particularly those affiliated with NASA's Johnson Space Center. David Wolf became the first astronaut to cast a space ballot. NASA's Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) program facilitated this process by securely transmitting electronic ballots from space to ground stations.

NASA started this 'voting from space' system back in 1997, when Texas passed a law allowing astronauts to vote from orbit. Since then, space voting has become a cherished NASA tradition.

In space, hundreds of miles above Earth, NASA astronauts on the International Space Station are voting in the 2024 presidential election. There are four Americans currently aboard the orbiting laboratory,