Calling a proposal to bar use of Georgia’s antiquated computer voting machines by the midterm election a “true Catch-22,” a federal judge in Atlanta decided Monday night that the state may continue using its touchscreen machines, rather than convert to paper ballots in time for the Nov. 6 midterm election.

Judge Amy Totenberg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia said that, although Georgia’s voting system installed in 2002 “poses a concrete risk of alteration of ballot counts” that could affect the vote, “the eleventh-hour timing” of the request to immediately return to paper ballots “could just as readily jeopardize the upcoming election, voter turnout, and the orderly administration of the election.”