Today’s Super Awesome People™ are the folks who are voting—in the United States, around the world, and even circling 250 miles above Earth.
American astronaut Kathleen Rubins has joined millions of other citizens and cast an early vote in the United States’ 2020 presidential election. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia offer early in-person voting options this year (although the rules are complicated and vary by state), and this year, the International Space Station (I.S.S.) got in on the early-voting action. Astronauts first voted in space in 1997, and Dr. Rubins voted from the I.S.S. for the first time in 2016—the same year she made history as the first person to sequence DNA in space.
NY Early Voting Sticker 2020 
Astronaut Kate Rubins casts her vote on the I.S.S. (NASA) 
(Element5 Digital, Unsplash)
While Dr. Rubins was the only voter at her makeshift I.S.S. Voting Booth, lines have been long across the United States since in-person early voting began this fall. While long lines can be a form of voter suppression (especially when used against traditionally disenfranchised populations), for many Americans, the lines are an optimistic sign that a disengaged population has awoken to the power of the vote—an awakening that began in earnest in the 2018 midterm elections.
But will this political awakening last? Will state legislatures enact even more obstacles to disenfranchise voters? Will voters show up for local races, primaries, or the 2022 midterm elections?
Right now, citizens from countries all over the world are showing American citizens the power of the vote and the power of protest. In Bolivia, voters and protestors have fought back against corruption and growing authoritarianism to elect leftist Luis Arce as president. In Chile, 79% of voters have demanded a new, more inclusive constitution to replace the one written during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. And the world has also shown us how to resist a stolen election.
It’s not too late to reform the major issues in the USA’s electoral system—Citizens United, gerrymandering, voter suppression, the stranglehold of a two-party system… But lasting change requires engaged voters who show up again and again, who vote strategically to make incremental change, and who advocate fiercely for what matters most. May 2020 be just the beginning.
- Find Your Polling Place, Locate a Drop Box, and More Resources (Vote.org)
- Don’t Fall for These Lies About Voting in the 2020 Election (Consumer Reports)
- 2020 General Election Early Vote Statistics (U.S. Elections Project)
- Make Your Vote Count! (DemandTheVote.com)
- Ten Things You Need to Know to Stop a Coup (Choose Democracy.us)
Thank you to the Super Awesome Voters™ everywhere (on Earth and 250 miles above!) who are showing up, waiting in lines, and making your voices heard.