ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court has affirmed the state's right to use touch-screen voting machines, rejecting a lawsuit that claimed they violate citizens' constitutional rights and do not protect against election fraud.

"We cannot say that the use of paperless, touchscreen voting systems severely restricts the right to vote," Justice George Carley wrote in an opinion published Monday.

The unanimous ruling upheld an earlier decision by a Fulton County Superior Court judge.

The electronic voting system was adopted in 2002 in the aftermath of voting problems in Florida. Georgia became the first state in the nation to have uniform touch-screen voting statewide.

Eight people sued the governor, the secretary of state and election officials in 2006, claiming the system doesn't protect against fraudulent results. They argued there's no guarantee that electronic ballots are tallied correctly because there's no way to independently audit the votes collected by the machines.

Chandler Walker, the lawyer who represented Garland Favorito and seven other people in the suit, did not immediately return a message left on his cell phone seeking comment Monday.

Secretary of State Karen Handel applauded the decision, saying Georgia conducts four levels of security testing on the machines and has "the most secure elections in the nation."

The Supreme Court opinion says "no balloting system is perfect" and points out that paper ballots can also have problems, as evidenced in the 2000 general election in Florida.

But the court says officials in Georgia have "made a reasonable, politically neutral and non-discriminatory ch