Cuyahoga County is poised to throw out its $21-million touch-screen voting system only weeks before the March 4 presidential primary.

The four-member Board of Elections deadlocked along party lines in a vote Thursday afternoon to scrap the equipment in favor of new machines estimated to cost $3 million. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is expected to break the tie vote - as state law allows - to complete the transformation.

Brunner said late in the afternoon that she was waiting to talk to advisors, but could make a statement this evening.

The board's two Republican members criticized Brunner for inserting herself into the decision. President Jeff Hastings and board member Rob Frost opposed switching equipment because there is too little time to prepare for the election and because they were unsure the new system would be an improvement.

"We are being asked by the Secretary of State to swap one defective system for another," Hastings said.

While the board carefully deliberated for weeks whether to change voting equipment before March, Brunner made her preference clear.

Last week, Brunner called on Cuyahoga County to immediately buy new equipment because she doesn't trust the county's current touch-screen system, made by Diebold Inc. Her plea was part of an 84-page report released last week that found problems with all of Ohio's voting equipment.

Brunner urged the Board of Elections to buy high-speed optical scanners made by Election Systems & Software, of Omaha, Neb. On March 4, the scanners would be set up at the Board of Elections' building to count paper ballots filled out by voters at polling locations.

Board members Inajo Davis Chappell and Sandy McNair, both Democrats, said they have lost confidence in the touch-screen system, which malfunctioned during the Nov. 6 election, delaying results. Cuyahoga County bought the machines in 2006.

Chappell said she thought it best to buy new equipment now, rather than risk implementing it before the November presidential election.

"I don't want to be the laughingstock of the nation in March or November," she said.