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To the sound of hisses and boos from the audience, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to buy voting equipment from Diebold Elections Systems.

The county is buying the machines with $2 million in federal money to comply with the Help America Vote Act, which requires that the disabled be able to vote in private without assistance.

Critics say the machines are too easy to tamper with and could lead to election fraud.

As part of a motion made by Supervisor Ramon Valadez, county election workers will do their own tests on the machines, and the supervisors will vote again on whether to use the machines in the September primary.

Valadez said the supervisors were advised that if they didn't comply with federal law, the county might be ordered to buy the same machines with county rather than federal funds.

"We are placed in a very difficult position," Valadez said.

"The Diebold equipment raises a lot of questions," he said. "Until those questions are answered, I don't think I personally will be comfortable."

Valadez added that he doesn't believe the county can pass on buying the equipment with federal funds.

He said his motion gave the county the ability to comply with the law while preserving the option to not use the machines if the board is not satisfied they're secure or if a lawsuit seeking an injunction against their use is successful.

Valadez and Supervisors Ann Day and Sharon Bronson voted to buy 409 AccuVote touch-screen machines and related equipment, while Supervisors Richard Elias and Ray Carroll voted against the purchase.

"There's too many unanswered questions about security," Elias said. "There's a pending court case that could change all this. With all that, we're putting ourselves in a bad position by purchasing this."

Critics of electronic voting pleaded with the supervisors not to buy the machines and hissed as the roll was called.

"The system has failed us," Tom Ryan said. "The federal system has approved machines that have failed in the field. All the machines have problems, but only Diebold records the vote directly."

Critics prefer machines made by other companies that allow disabled voters to mark a paper ballot. The AccuVote machines produce a paper record, similar to an ATM receipt, but not an actual ballot.

But Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer won't allow Pima County to buy other machines because the county already uses Diebold optical scanners. In a letter, she called an earlier decision to postpone the purchase "unconscionable."

Advocates for disabled voters were not happy with the conditions tied to the approval.

"I still don't know if we're going to have accessible voting come September," said Peri Jude Radecic, director for public advocacy for the Arizona Center for Disability Law. "The bottom line is something has to be in place, and this vote doesn't assure that."

In other business, the supervisors:

● Voted to spend $110,000 from the county's contingency fund on repairs at Pima Motorsports Park.

● Approved a $150,000 settlement with a Pima Health System client who died after a nursing-home stay during which a sore went untreated. The county did not admit fault. The nursing home settled for an undisclosed amount.

● Approved a $1.2 million contract for construction of the Mount Lemmon Community Center.