Now that the political season is upon us with the major primaries underway, it’s the perfect time to address the importance of security and availability for electronic voting machines. Research conducted by companies in this industry, such as Premier Election Solutions, concluded that with more and more jurisdictions across the country adopting electronic polling technology, the growing concern moves to reliability.

Will the electronic poll be up and running when you’re next in line to vote? In this article, the author highlights his past experiences with e-voting for a 2006 gubernatorial election where he stood in line for 45 minutes at the polling station, waiting while a technician attempted to fix a glitch in the system. Some voters might not be so patient and leave the polls without casting a vote. How are we supposed to encourage people to vote when the technology might hinder us from doing so?

As the adoption of electronic polling technology continues to grow, consider the ramification of a large system outage. In today’s “on demand” world, any significant delay in achieving our goals has a dramatic impact on our productivity, mood and effectiveness. If you can’t vote when you want to (maybe you won’t leave as deciding the next leader of the free world is kind of important) but what could the delay impact in your normal routine?

Most of us have a methodology for completing tasks. We have commitments to honor like picking up the kids from soccer, making it to that new business meeting on time, not keeping customers waiting, etc. Sure, most of us have a back up in place, just as we are sure all polling stations do, but no one wants to have to deal with “hanging chads” in our personal lives (look at the mess it caused in Florida). Let’s face it, it’s always better to just avoid the situation in the first place by always being available when needed. Or at the very least, having the things you need to tackle your tasks available when you need them.