17 of the most unique places Americans have voted

This Election Day the Brooklyn Museum will once again open its doors to voters. To celebrate Americans' right to vote, the museum is displaying Ed Ruscha's "OUR FLAG," which it calls "a windswept, torn, and threadbare American flag that invokes the precarious nature of democracy."

The museum is also offering programming and highlighting movements like Plan Your Vote, an artist-led initiative encouraging citizens to exercise their right to vote.

While voting in the 2012 presidential election at Venice Beach lifeguard headquarters in Los Angeles, California, 30-year-old surfer Mike Weigart told the AP, "It's awesome the polling place is where I surf."

The pool is currently closed due to COVID-19 concerns but is normally open year-round for activities including diving, water polo, and synchronized swimming.

According to Getty, it's common for businesses as well as private homes in Southern California to be used as polling stations on Election Day. In this picture, Visions Hair Salon was used as a polling place for the 2006 midterm elections.

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at Fire Station 10 in Arlington, Virginia.

The Neptune Society Columbarium, built in 1898, is a historic landmark and home to 8,500 cremated human remains, many of which belong to famous names including former San Francisco Mayor Edward Robeson Taylor and the parents of Carlos Santana. It turns into a polling place during elections.

On any normal day, patrons would be lining up at Taquerias Los Comales in Chicago, Illinois, for the joint's Mexico City-style tacos. But on Election Day in 2012, voters were there to cast their ballots.

During midterm elections in 2018, Moises Valentin, a pastor voting at the Long Beach polling place, told Rappler, "Usually we vote in the schools or churches. Yeah, it's unusual actually, now that I think of it."

Levele Wiley, an employee at Los Angeles International Airport, told the site, "It's pretty cool. I mean, it's nice to come look at some bikes and get your vote on. In that sense, nothing seems more American than that."

When the Swedish American Museum isn't being used as a polling place, tourists often visit the Brunk Children's Museum of Immigration, use the site's genealogy center, or try Swedish food, according to its website.

Schools are a common location for polling places, but few have as much history as this one-room schoolhouse, which served as a polling place in the 2016 presidential election.

Grocery stores are normally a popular location for polls but this year the coronavirus is making them less safe, leading states like Texas to opt for other polling spaces.

During past elections, voters were able to knock two items off their to-do list: laundry and voting.

You might be able to vote and get your car serviced at the same time if your polling place is an auto garage.

According to the Ames Tribune, each election, Ray Lounsberry — who was 93 during the 2016 presidential election — wakes up at 6 a.m. to turn on the heat in his shed and set up the voting machines. He offers the roughly 300 voters assigned to the precinct coffee and frees up space in a refrigerator for poll workers' lunches.

Lounsberry told the outlet that he doesn't mind sharing his shed; in fact, he volunteered it after voting at a different shed years ago that had very little heat, which he felt discouraged people from going out and voting.

"I feel like I'm doing a service to the county by letting them use this," Lounsberry said. "I don't mind at all."

A line of voters cast their ballots inside the Mockingbird Valley Soccer club in Louisville, Kentucky.

Since the 1997 passing of Rule 81.35 in the Texas state legislature (NASA's Johnson Space Center is located in Houston, where many astronauts live) astronauts have been able to use a special electronic absentee ballot to vote from outer space, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The law states that "a person who meets the eligibility requirements of a voter under the Texas Election Code, Chapter 101, but who will be on a space flight during the early-voting period and on Election Day, may vote."

Astronauts on NASA's Space-X Crew-1 had anticipated voting from space this year but will be on Earth for Election Day because their mission was delayed to mid-November.

Churches are commonly used as polling places, but voting at a Hindu temple in the heart of Mormon country is truly unique.

• Read more:
• 2020 U.S. ELECTION: What you need to know right now
• 21 artists who have spoken out against President Trump playing their music at his events
• WHERE ARE THEY NOW: Candidates who lost presidential elections