Do you remember the last time you were inside a local polling station? Maybe it was a station that had been temporarily erected inside a public school or library, or even a restaurant or a neighbor’s garage.
Perhaps you were there to cast a ballot in a municipal election. Maybe you were voting in a presidential primary election. But whatever the scenario, and wherever the location, it’s unlikely that you spent much time thinking about the intricacies of the polling place’s voting machines. And yet … maybe you should have.
Did you know, for instance, that the very first voting machine to use a lever debuted in 1892? Known as the “Myers Automatic Booth,” it was such a success that mechanical lever machines were still being used as recently as 1996.
But you’re unlikely to ever again see a lever-operated mechanical voting machine, at least outside of an antiques store. We are, after all, solidly in the Age of Electronics. And that at least partially explains why computerized voting machines—many of them complete with electronic touchscreens—have completely replaced the old mechanic models that served the country for more than a century.
If you’re over the age of 18, there’s a decent chance you’ve used a touchscreen-enabled voting machine, which is technically known as a direct-recording electronic (DRE) machine.
Only 7.7 percent of polling stations in the United States were using DRE machines in 1996, when they first came into popular use. By 2004 that number had risen to 28.9 percent. Regardless of the controversy surrounding the machines, which some voters consider highly fallible and relatively easy to hack, electronic voting is now a staple of the voting process not only in the U.S., but worldwide.
* * *
It seems hard to believe, but in a couple of months, millions of Americans will be heading to their local polling places to cast a ballot in the 2016 presidential election primaries. Many of us will be using touchscreens to cast those votes.
But ask yourself this: On average, how many fingers each day will be touching the same screen you’ll use? Where have those fingers been, and what exactly have they been doing? How many germs are they carrying? Are the owners of those fingers sick with a contagious germ infection? Are they carrying remnants of a food or other substance you may be allergic to?
We could go on and on with those sorts of questions. But the point we’re trying to make is this: Electronic touchscreens shared by many hundreds of different people pose any number of potential health hazards. There is a solution, however, and it’s one that is both simple and surprisingly affordable. It’s an antimicrobial screen protection film, the NuShield Triple A.
For devices with touchscreen applications, the Triple A’s antimicrobial properties have been specifically formulated to eliminate the contamination created by multiple users. In environments where touchscreens are used over and over again by different people, they become a veritable breeding ground for germs.
But here’s the good news: In laboratory tests, the Triple A film’s antimicrobial coating has shown a reduction rate of 99 percent of colon bacillus and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria over a 24 hour period. The screen protector’s inorganic antibacterial coating has an excellent antibacterial spectrum that has also proven to be heat and solvent resistant. The surface can be safely and easily cleaned without affecting the germ killing properties.
If you’re responsible for polling places in your community or know anyone in an official capacity, we ask that you register a vote against germs by asking these persons to add a screen protector to the top surface of the device. The film is thin, so it doesn’t affect the touch sensitivity of the display, but it will kill the germs deposited on the surface. And because NuShield’s screen protection films currently support over 12,000 different devices, from laptops and tablets to control panels and thermostats, they don’t need to worry whether or not the Triple A film will actually fit touchscreen devices.
In fact, NuShield offers Triple A films for any device with an LCD, LED or plasma display up to 80-inch diagonal. But if the specific device (or devices) located in your polling station aren’t already listed in our database, we can even create new film sizes to fit them. We do it every day, and we do it without extra charge.
No one wants to use a device that is a breeding ground for germs. And because the Triple A film also has anti-glare and anti-fingerprint technology, your polling station or place of business can also be protected.
So what will you vote for? Do you need a simple, cost-effective solution for minimizing risk from touchscreens in private and public places? We suggest that you vote for NuShield’s easy-to-install Triple A film. Click here if you’re ready to order. To place bulk orders of any NuShield product, click here.