It's not news that Ohio has election problems. Cuyahoga Conty in particular has been plagued with election irregularities and inefficiencies. Whether or not these problems have affected prior election results (I doubt it), they are a festering sore that undermines the legitimacy of the state's voting returns.

Today's NYT reports on a new report commissioned by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner identifying a host of problems in the voting systems used throughout the state and calling for another round of reforms.

At polling stations, teams working on the study were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use hand-held devices to plug false vote counts into machines. At boards of election, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers.

Ms. Brunner proposed replacing all of the state's voting machines, including the touch-screen ones used in more than 50 of Ohio's 88 counties. She wants all counties to use optical scan machines that read and electronically record paper ballots that are filled in manually by voters.

She called for legislation and financing to be in place by April so the new machines can be used in the presidential election next November. She said she could not estimate the cost of the changes.

My local polling station in Hudson, Ohio, already uses optical scan machines, and they seem to work quite well, but I'm hardly an expert.

UPDATE: Here's local coverage from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

FURTHER UPDATE: Ohio State's Dan Tokaji discusses the report on the Equal Vote blog.