A view of the International Space Station as it orbits the Earth. It is home to a multi-national congregation of astronauts from across the world who now call space their second home(Photo courtesy of NASA).
Last month, I had written about the eclipse around the time I was forming a panel for the Frontiers of Democracy conference in which I had made a post on Twitter that was liked by Rep. Grace Meng of New York. This month, we’re still staying in space to continue talking about more down to Earth matters.
If you’ve been following the recent news on the stranded astronauts on the International Space Station, you may have heard that the astronauts, who had planned to return to Earth after a supposedly one-week mission aboard, have now found themselves needing to stay in space for more than half a year while the issues with their vehicle back to Earth are sorted out. The earliest return window for the astronauts will be early next year. That’s if things go according to plan, with no additional delays that can prolong their stay potentially popping up between now & then.
Besides personal milestones & regular planetary events that the duo will miss, there’s also another event- the current elections. However, since 1997, NASA has covered astronauts from space, allowing them the ability to cast a ballot miles from the planet’s surface.
This year marks the 11th year since Takoma Park in Maryland became the first city that lowered the voting age to 16. Since then, half a dozen other cities have joined that exclusive list, including a city in Vermont, Brattleboro. If you add in states with cities that have lowered school board voting ages, like Berkeley & Oakland in California, as well as Newark in New Jersey, then you have even more youth that have been enfranchised than in the past. More efforts are continuing to expand that list of enfranchised cities, for both local general elections but as well as school board elections.
Even with a lowered voting age in Takoma Park in 2013, if one were to say that lowering the voting age to 16 were possible in the United States around that time, most would say it were impossible, if not downright hard. Other cities, now with Vermont as a state on that list, that is becoming less & less impossible of a dream. If astronauts can vote from space(since 1997), then lowering the voting age to 16 shouldn’t be either.
Jester Jersey
#16ToVoteAdvocacyProject 