et al. v. Blackwell Schering v. Blackwell Ohio Democratic Party v. Blackwell; Upheld in federal appeals court in favor of Blackwell Anita Rios et al. v. Blackwell State ex. rel David Yost et al. v. National Voting Rights Institute et al. Release of Ohio Social Security numbers On March 1, 2006, Blackwell's office accidentally published a list of 1.2 million Social Security numbers of Ohio citizens on a website along with their business filings. A Federal class-action lawsuit was filed by Darrell Estep, who claimed that the release of the data had resulted in his Social Security number appearing three times on the public website. The lawsuit was settled on March 28, 2006, after the numbers were removed from the website, a registration process was enacted to view the data, and Blackwell's office agreed to make monthly progress reports to the court. The data was part of a centralized voter database, required by Federal law. At that time, Blackwell promised to retain only the last four digits of the Social Security number in the database to prevent future problems. But on April 26, 2006, Blackwell's office disclosed Ohio Social Security numbers again, mailing out computer disks containing the names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of 5.7 million registered voters in Ohio (80% of all registered voters in the state). The list was released as a standard practice under the Freedom of Information Act and Help America Vote Act. Blackwell's office apologized, saying that the release of the Social Security numbers was accidental and it attempted to recall all 20 of the disks. At least one recipient of the disks refused to comply. Jim Petro, then Republican Attorney General of Ohio, launched an investigation into the disclosure, citing a legal requirement to "investigate any state entity where there may be a risk of a loss of private data." Blackwell stated that he considered the issue to be closed, but Petro disagreed, saying that he would use "maximum due diligence" to ensure that the data was not copied before it was returned. Ohio law requires that individuals be notified if their Social Security numbers are compromised. Diebold controversies Ohio State Senator Jeff Jacobson asked Blackwell in July 2003 to disqualify Diebold Election Systems' bid to supply voting machines for the state, after security problems were discovered in its software. On April 4, 2006, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Blackwell "owned stock [83