I spoke to a Kanawha County poll worker last week who told me one of the reasons Kanawha County had so many straight ticket voters was because of the difficulty of some voters with West Virginia’s new voting system. As you may know, West Virginia went from the punch ballot to a mixture of an optical scan ballot and electronic voting machines.

This poll worker said that the elderly were intimidated by both methods. They avoided the electronic machines like the plague and chose paper instead: but found filling in all the ovals next to the candidates of choice tedious and difficult.

Of course the first option in the ballot is to vote straight ticket Republican or Democrat. According to the poll worker, when the elderly realized all they had to do was fill in one little circle and be done with it, they chose that instead. And faced with a decision between Democrat and Republican straight ticket, we all know whom they chose.

Couple that with West Virginia MetroNew’s report that the largest block of voters were over the age of 60 and voila, a perfect storm. Of course there were many factors that led to the West Virginia Republican’s defeat but perhaps this gives a little explanation.

No matter what their political persuasion or demographic, the voting process should not intimidate voters. Hopefully the elderly will get used to the optical scan ballots and things will be better in two years.