As we patiently wait for the election results to be posted, we have some time to ponder how exactly NASA astronauts vote, while orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station.  This only matters because of my children’s  current obsession with fictional Howard Wolowitz (for those of you who watch the Big Bang Theory.)

As it turns out they’ll have the option to vote just like any other American citizen, only from the most amazing polling place ever. It’s actually a fairly simple process, Discovery News explains:

Astronauts residing on the orbiting lab receive a digital version of their ballot, which is beamed up by Mission Control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Filled-out ballots find their way back down to Earth along the same path.

“They send it back to Mission Control,” said NASA spokesman Jay Bolden of JSC. “It’s a secure ballot that is then sent directly to the voting authorities.”