The problem was discovered Tuesday when one of the political campaigns contacted the Ohio secretary of state's office to say that the personal data was on the discs, even though it wasn't requested, said James Lee, a spokesman for Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.

All of the political organizations that received the CDs were immediately contacted and have agreed to return the discs for replacements that won't include the Social Security numbers, Lee said. The records of about 7.7 million registered voters in Ohio are listed on the CDs, but Lee said he did not know how many voter records included Social Security numbers. The records show what elections a voter participated in since 2002, along with their names and addresses.

For many years, Ohio voter registration forms included a space where the voter could choose to include a Social Security number, but it was optional, he said. Earlier this year, the forms were changed to include only the last four digits of the number to better protect a voter's private information.

The Social Security numbers were included, Lee said, when the CDs were created. 'When we did one of our data merges, some data included some Social Security numbers' accidentally, he said. 'It's just a data issue that can be fixed now by leaving out that column.'

Once the affected CDs are returned sometime in the next two weeks, updated discs will be issued. Asked if any print-outs from the CDs will also be returned or destroyed, Lee said he doesn't believe any print-outs were made. 'We consider the issue resolved,' he said.