Ohio’s study of electronic voting machines could have repercussions far beyond the borders of the Buckeye State. The touch-screen machines faulted in the study are used not only in 50 of Ohio’s 88 counties, but also in communities across the country. Those machines have been viewed as problematic in many locations.

The study involved a team of scientists from an academic setting and another from a corporate setting. Both groups conducted parallel research on the security of electronic voting machines.

The results were startling to some people and nothing unexpected to others. In some citizens’ minds, doubts arose when communities gave up their old paper ballot systems. Studies such as this one don’t ease concerns.

In the Ohio research, teams working at polling stations were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use handheld devices to plug false vote counts into machines. At election board offices, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers. Ohio’s secretary of state Jennifer Brunner concluded the study showed “critical security failures.”

For Fulton County’s commissioners to brush aside the findings—as they did at Fayette’s council meeting last week—shows they’re missing the point of the study.

Commissioners placed the blame on operator error; the study faulted the machines themselves. Commissioners said the problems are somewhere else, but not in Fulton County; the study found the potential for problems with the machines used in Fulton County.

Secretary of State Brunner isn’t suggesting that anyone tampered with Fulton County’s voting machines, nor is she suggesting that anyone on the Board of Elections would attempt such a thing.

It’s the equipment that she has a problem with, and for good reason. The Ohio study was just one more among many that have found potential security problems with touch-screen voting machines.

Here in Michigan, we miss pushing the levers and pulling the handle to create a paper ballot, but at least the state chose an optical scanning system as a replacement. Citizens vote on paper, then rely on a computer to collect the data from the marked ballot.

Studies have found them to be much more secure than what most Ohio voters face on election day.