Three NASA astronauts used electronic ballots to participate in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections from the International Space Station.
Three NASA astronauts cast their ballots in the U.S. congressional midterm elections from the International Space Station (ISS) on November 3, 2026. The astronauts involved in the vote were Anil Menon, Jessica Watkins, and Luke Delaney.
NASA astronaut Anil Menon used his crew sleeping compartment on the ISS as a voting booth. In a video shared on social media, Menon said he filled out an electronic ballot on his computer and sent it to Harris County in Texas. His crewmates Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney voted later.
According to NASA, the process for astronauts to vote involves several steps. Astronauts may fill out a Federal Post Card Application to request an absentee ballot. Once an astronaut fills out an electronic ballot aboard the orbiting laboratory, the document "flows through NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System to a ground antenna at the agency's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico," according to NASA. From New Mexico, NASA transfers the ballot to the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson and then on to the county clerk responsible for casting the ballot. To preserve the vote's integrity, the ballot is encrypted and accessible only by the astronaut and the clerk.
American astronauts have been able to vote from space since 1997. That year, Texas passed a law allowing astronauts registered to vote in the state to cast ballots while in orbit. NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote from space that year, casting his ballot from the Russian space station Mir.
In the 2022 midterms, NASA astronaut Josh Cassada used sleeping quarters as a makeshift voting booth aboard the ISS.
The three Americans currently living on the ISS are Anil Menon, Jessica Watkins, and Luke Delaney. Delaney and Watkins launched to the ISS on October 1 on SpaceX's Crew-13 mission. Menon has been on the station since mid-July, having arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The crew currently shares the orbiting laboratory with four other people: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and cosmonauts Anna Kikina, Pyotr Dubrov, and Sergey Teteryatnikov. Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are members of Crew-13, while Dubrov and Kikina shared the Soyuz with Menon.
The U.S. midterm elections were held on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. According to preliminary results from The Associated Press (AP), Democrats regained the Senate majority with 51 seats, flipping six Republican-held seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, and Iowa.
In the House of Representatives, CNN and CNBC projected that Democrats will retake control. The AP had called 173 races for Democrats and 106 for Republicans, with Democrats flipping nine Republican-held seats. A party needs 218 seats for a majority, and many races were still awaiting final results.
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This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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