First person to vote in space

The first people to cast a vote in an election while travelling in space were cosmonauts Colonel Yuri Ivanovich Onufriyenko and Yury Vladimirovich Usachov (both Russia), who voted in the 16 June 1996 Russian presidential election using proxies on Earth while travelling on board the Mir space station. The following year, in the USA, Texas legislature changed the law on absentee voting, allowing David Wolf (USA) to vote in a local election during his mission on board Mir, making him the first astronaut to vote from space. The first US astronaut to vote in a Presidential election was Leroy Chiao, Commander of the International Space Station Expedition 10, who voted in the 55th quadrennial presidential election on 2 November 2004.

Americans vote from space using a secure line established by the Johnston Space Center in Houston, Texas, which relays the absentee ballot to the astronaut then returns the vote to the appropriate home county. The law allowing absentee voting from space (Chapter 81, Subchapter B, Rule 35) was introduced in 1997 with the help of Texas State Senator Mike Jackson, after astronaut John Blaha missed out on voting in the Clinton-Dole election.