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The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to scan images of ballots in the September primary election, a move that puts the county on a collision course with Secretary of State Jan Brewer.

The supervisors first approved the scans in December at the behest of elections activists who wanted more openness. But they backed off after Brewer warned the county, in a series of strongly worded letters, that creating its own election procedure was illegal.

The Pima County Attorney's Office issued an opinion that scanning ballots and posting them on the Internet raised a number of concerns, including possibilities of vote-buying because voters could mark their ballots and concerns about voter privacy in rural precincts where only a few people vote.

And an attempt in the Legislature to change the law to allow ballot-scanning failed.

But on Tuesday, during a discussion of other changes the county will make to improve election security and openness around vote counting, elections activists urged the county to ask a judge for a declaratory judgment on ballot scanning.

"All these ideas are very good, but just show us the ballots," activist John Brakey said. "Voting is a secret process, but counting is a public process."

After deciding to ask for an opinion from the state Attorney General's Office and the federal Department of Justice, Supervisor Ramón Valadez made a motion, approved unanimously by the other supervisors, to make preparations to scan the ballots during the September primary.

"I am a little fed up with the secretary of state acting as a barrier and leaving us to take the blame," Valadez said.

Chris Straub, chief civil deputy county attorney, said Brewer could seek an injunction against the county to stop the scanning, but the supervisors decided to move ahead, provided the Department of Justice does not object to the procedure.

Humboldt County, in Northern California, just finished scanning 32,000 ballots from the state primary election as part of a pilot program there. Carolyn Crnich, who is the Humboldt County clerk, recorder and registrar of voters, said the county just wants to provide the most openness possible.

The idea of seeking Justice Department clearance didn't come up there, Crnich said, because the California secretary of state supported trying the idea, though she held back full support until she gets a report on Humboldt County's program.

Justice Department clearances typically are aimed at making sure voting procedures don't put minority populations at a disadvantage.

Valadez instructed the county staff to work on resolving the technical issues, including looking at scanning the ballots onto a compact disc instead of posting them online as a way of mitigating any privacy concerns.

Deputy Secretary of State Kevin Tyne said the county is venturing into dangerous territory.

"It's just a further lack of understanding by the Pima County Board of Supervisors," Tyne said. "Going back to January, we pointed out to them that it is unlawful. We pointed out to them that it is unlawful, and they acknowledged that it is unlawful. I guess they don't get it."

Tyne said all counties have to have the same procedures for counting votes.

"All ballot tabulation has to be uniform as described by law and by the procedures manual," he said.

Tyne said that would preclude scanning images of ballots, even if they still were counted using the old procedures. "It's part of the overall process," he said.

He declined to say whether the secretary of state would seek an injunction against Pima County, but he said Brewer would make sure the county follows state procedures.