COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A federal judge has ordered Ohio's top elections official to verify the identity of newly registered voters.

A U.S. District Court judge in Columbus ruled Thursday that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must perform verification required by the Help America Vote Act. That includes matching a new registrant's information with information in databases maintained by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the Social Security Administration.

The order was the result of a lawsuit filed by the Ohio Republican Party against Brunner, a Democrat. Republicans recently failed in a challenge to the state's one week early voting window, which ended Monday.

Brunner says there will be an appeal.

Meanwhile, election officials in Ohio and other swing states are defending their voter registration procedures in response to a New York Times story.

The newspaper's story yesterday noted that Ohio had sent several requests for voter registration verifications to the Social Security Administration.

In a letter to the state's top elections official, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said his agency had received more than 740,000 verification requests from Ohio over the last year. He said the number was "greater than one would expect" and he wanted to make sure checks were being run only on new voters.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has said roughly 666,000 new voters have registered in Ohio since the start of 2008.

(Article courtesy of WHIOTV.com)