Care for a shot with your ballot? No, not espresso. Flu vaccine.

Close to 200 polling places across the country are offering influenza vaccines on Election Day.

Flu may seem like little more than a chance to skip a few days of work, but it is a “serious public health threat,” said Douglas Shenson, a Yale University physician and the director of the program. “There are over 200,000 hospitalizations for influenza each year, and on average 36,000 Americans die from influenza.”

Organizers of “Vote & Vax” view Election Day as the perfect opportunity to target people most at risk of death from influenza, namely those older than 50. About 70 percent of U.S. voters are in that age group.

“The public health potential of this seems very, very large,” said Shenson, who promised the program is “nonpolitical and nonpartisan.” Each clinic, organized with local election authorities, is underwritten by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

In 2000, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending an annual flu shot for everyone older than 50. But more than half of those people go unvaccinated each year, Shenson said.

“We suspect they had not been in the habit of getting annual flu shots,” he said. Others may skip inoculations because of cost, especially if they do not have health insurance. Most Medicare plans cover flu shots. A recent article in the medical journal the Lancet questioned whether the vaccine is effective for people older than 70.

The CDC also recommends the vaccine for children 6 months to 19 years of age, pregnant women, health-care workers and people with compromised immune systems.

In 2006, the program reached more than 13,000 people. With such high interest in this year’s presidential race, sponsors hope to inoculate thousands more.

For more information, go to www.voteandvax.org.