from TruthOut.org

Cincinnati – All 57 counties in Ohio that still use the touch-screen voting machines that were found to be unreliable in a statewide study must provide paper ballots to any voters who request them for the presidential primary in March.

 The Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer L. Brunner, issued the directive on Wednesday night as part of an effort to restore confidence in the state’s voting systems, which the study found to be vulnerable to computer hackers and other saboteurs using devices as rudimentary as magnets and personal digital assistants. The study recommended that by the November presidential election all counties replace touch-screen machines with paper ballots.

 Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Ms. Brunner, called the directive “an interim step” to give voters concerned by the study “another option.”

 The counties were also ordered to provide secure containers for the ballots and private areas for voters to fill out the paper forms.

 Ms. Brunner, a Democrat, who was elected in November, pledged to reform voting after her predecessor, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, came under fire for simultaneously overseeing the 2004 election and serving as co-chairman of President Bush’s re-election campaign in Ohio.

Original story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/us/04ohio.html?ref=us