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Pima County released the databases and files from the last three countywide elections Friday after 2 1/2 hours of tense, last-minute negotiations over exactly how those records would be made public.

County officials and the election integrity activists who sued them to get access to the files said it's one of the largest releases of election files as public records since electronic voting became widespread.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors agreed to release the files and databases from the RTA election and the 2006 primary and general elections at a contentious meeting Tuesday.

A judge had ordered the release of the primary and general election databases after the Democratic Party sued for databases from all past elections, and the supervisors gave into activists' demands the RTA election databases be released as well.

The matter is not entirely resolved, however. Attorney Bill Risner, who represents the Democrats, has filed motions in Pima County Superior Court asking that elections databases always be considered public record and that they be made available to the political parties within the window to challenge an election.

He also is seeking $792,900 in legal fees.

If the county objects to those requests, the issue could end up back in court.

The Board of Supervisors has an executive session scheduled Tuesday to receive legal advice on the matter.

The release of the previous election databases almost didn't happen Friday because the Democratic Party and the county could not agree on how to transfer the files. The county wanted to use a county computer to transfer the files to separate hard drives, while the Democratic Party wanted to use a brand-new laptop still in its factory box.

The county's technology expert didn't want one party to have a copy of the files without the coding that serves as a fingerprint and ensures the copies are the same as the original, while the Democratic Party's expert didn't want to use a county computer that might be programmed to tamper with the files.

At 4 p.m. Friday, the two sides agreed to transfer the data to both the county computer and the Democratic Party's new computer, compare the files to ensure they were identical, copy it to four hard drives — one for each party — then erase the data on the Democratic Party's computer.

Officials from the county Democratic and Republican parties were on hand as the files were copied. Hard drives will be saved for the Libertarian and Green parties, should they wish to run their own analysis.

The Regional Transportation Authority election created a half-cent sales tax to fund a $2 billion, 20-year transportation plan.

The vote touched off questions about the integrity of the county's ballot-counting procedures.

The Democratic Party plans to analyze the databases to ensure the votes were tallied correctly.