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Pima County is backing away from its commitment to scan ballot images for display online and to discontinue use of touchscreen voting machines.

County officials blamed legal and regulatory hurdles for the reversal.

But the county is considering a number of other measures to beef up election security, including running background checks on many elections workers, increasing the size of hand recounts, taking control of elections software away from the elections division and using outside computer experts to test the county's systems.

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry laid out a number of steps he said could restore public trust and prevent tampering with elections results in a draft memo to the Board of Supervisors.

But before finalizing his recommendations for the supervisors' July meeting, Huckelberry shared the draft with the heads of the county political parties at a meeting with the Division of Elections earlier this week.

"We really want to do this with the county chairs, and we want to move forward cooperatively," Huckelberry said. "We'll alter our final product accordingly."

The heads of the county Dem-ocratic and Republican parties said they had not had a chance to go through all the recommendations yet, but they praised the county administrator for including the parties in the process.

Huckelberry reached out to the political parties a week after county supervisors agreed to a judge's order to release databases from past elections.

The Pima County Democratic Party sought copies of the databases as public records after uncovering irregularities in how data were handled within the Division of Elections.

The Democrats also said the political parties should have access to databases in a timely manner after future elections.

They said reviewing the databases was a vital part of their oversight duties in an era when ballot boxes are more likely to be stuffed electronically than with actual ballots.

Although county attorneys and computer experts argued releasing the databases represented a security breach, they now are working on a plan to release the databases to the parties after the election results are finalized and to members of the public who request them.

But county officials are stepping away from proposals to scan ballots so that voters can do their own hand recounts and to discontinue the use of touchscreen voting machines that have raised concerns among election-integrity activists around the country.

Secretary of State Jan Brewer, who has clashed repeatedly with the county on its proposed changes, did not want the ballots scanned and said doing so would violate established elections procedures.

The Pima County Attorney's Office issued a legal opinion that state law didn't allow the county to do it, and a proposal in the Legislature to allow it died.

Also, Huckelberry said the county could find itself in trouble with the federal Justice Department if it stopped using touchscreen voting machines.

The county bought the machines with federal money to comply with the Help America Vote Act, which requires that the disabled be able to vote without assistance.

The recommendations in the draft memo include:

● Fingerprinting and doing background checks on county employees and contractors who work in the Elections Division, the Recorder's Office or the Information Technology Department, if they are involved in elections. The requirement would not extend to poll workers.

● Hiring a deputy director, a compliance officer and a training officer in the Elections Division.

● Developing a standard procedure for turning over elections databases after elections.

● Meeting monthly with the political party chairs to improve communication.

● Considering new procedures for early-ballot tabulation, transmittal of precinct results and documenting chain of custody for ballots.

● Doubling the number of races, precincts or ballots to be used for hand recounts to verify electronic results.

● Creating an Election Integrity Commission.

● Employing two independent testing firms to verify the integrity of elections software and databases before each election.

After the political parties have a chance to comment on the recommendations, Huckelberry will make his final recommendations to the Board of Supervisors before its July 1 meeting.

"Our goal is to get consensus from everyone moving forward," Huckelberry said. "And the first step is to conduct the primary and general elections without any security breaches or flaws and in a timely manner, and the second step is just to get moving on this process of improving elections integrity."