Election officials have sent out more than 2,000 bottles of hand sanitizer to Virginia localities in the hopes to controlling the spread of the H1N1 flu virus at the polls Tuesday.

With hundreds of thousands of voters set to cast their ballot in the governor’s race and other elections, the State Board of Elections hopes to minimize the risk of catching the flu strain at at polling places, especially from touch-screen voting machines. They also want to offer public assurance that the locations are safe, to prevent flu fears from suppressing turnout.