As we all saw from Tuesday’s US presidential election, every vote counts. With “absentee” American’s casting their vote early by post or in person, how could the few that are not even on Earth cast their vote?

The ultimate “absentee” voters would be living on board the International Space Station, 250 miles above the Earth. This station is the ninth space station to be inhabited long-term, it can be seen by the naked eye from Earth and is currently crewed by the Expedition 33 team. This is a 6 person crew of which 2 are American citizens, commander Sunita Williams and flight engineer Kevin Ford.

The International Space Station is a laboratory, observatory and a factory in space all in one handy 990,000 lb artificial satellite. It also acts as a stop-gap and maintenance centre for missions to the moon, and in the future, to asteroids and Mars.

In order for votes to be cast from people currently circling Low Earth Orbit, a digital version of the ballot has to be beamed up from NASA’s Mission Control in Houston,Texas. Once completed, these secure ballots can then be are sent to Earth using the same pathway. It’s interesting to note that although digital voting is not currently an option for Earth-dwelling voters, NASA has come up with a seemingly flawless method to secure an astronaut’s vote, and to ensure it is sent directly to the voting authorities.

This peculiar system was created by Texas legislators in 1997, with most of NASA’s employees and astronauts residing in the state’s capital,Houston. The first vote to be cast in this innovative way was by David Wolf for a local election, done whilst he was aboard Russia’s Mir space station. The first above-Earth vote for a US presidential campaign was cast in 2004 by Leroy Chiao, whilst he was commanding the International Space Station as part of the Expedition 10 crew.

In actual fact, the American constituents of Expedition 33 are understood to have cast their early votes whilst stationed in Russia, before the launch of Russia’s Soyuz space shuttle which began Expedition 33’s mission to the International Space Station.

Luckily, however the astronauts voted, there is thought to be little change in NASA’s future missions, which means that the race to Mars is still anyone’s game.

Sophie Hyland