[Elections by Secret Ballot] Open-records laws in Ohio mean anyone can follow the machines' paper trail to see who voted for which candidates.

E-voting predicament: Not-so-secret ballots | By Declan McCullagh | Staff Writer, CNET News.com \ Published: August 20, 2007

Open-records laws in Ohio mean anyone can follow the machines' paper trail to see who voted for which candidates.

Ohio's method of conducting elections with electronic voting machines appears to have created a true privacy nightmare for state residents: revealing who voted for which candidates.

Two Ohio activists have discovered that e-voting machines made by Election Systems and Software and used across the country produce time-stamped paper trails that permit the reconstruction of an election's results--including allowing voter names to be matched to their actual votes.

Making a secret ballot less secret, of course, could permit vote selling and allow interest groups or family members to exert undue pressure on Ohio residents to vote a certain way. It's an especially pointed concern in Ohio, a traditional swing state in presidential elections that awarded George Bush a narrow victory over John Kerry three years ago. ...