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Elections activists and county officials are protesting the Pima County treasurer's plans to destroy the Regional Transportation Authority election ballots while there are still questions about the vote.

Treasurer Beth Ford, however, said she no longer is legally allowed to keep the ballots.

The treasurer is required to keep county election ballots for six months under state law. Then they must be destroyed. These ballots have been in storage since the 2006 election because of public-records lawsuits and other legal challenges, which are exceptions to the legal requirement that they be destroyed.

The Pima County Democratic Party sued the county last year for access to electronic databases of vote tallies and election results after the county refused to release them under the state public-records law.

The ballots, considered evidence in the case, though they've never been inspected, have been in secure storage.

A Pima County Superior Court judge ruled in the party's favor on the electronic records, prompting Ford to send out notices saying she planned to destroy the ballots.

"I believe the county is settled with the RTA issue," she said.

Her June 27 notice gives interested parties until Friday to submit written opposition to the destruction.

The Democratic, Libertarian and Green parties plan to oppose the ballot destruction, said attorney Bill Risner, who represented the Democrats in the records case.

The issue of destruction goes well beyond the civil cases, Risner said at a news conference Wednesday.

The Democratic Party is reviewing the electronic databases released by a judge's order in January. More electronic records are scheduled to be released to the party, he said. Until the review is complete, he said, the ballots need to be retained.

If the party finds evidence of tampering in the electronic records, the only way to determine the truth is to count the paper ballots again, he said.

If Ford receives written opposition to the ballot destruction, a Superior Court judge will be asked to authorize destruction or order the documents saved.

"Due to the statutory obligations that may apply, I simply do not wish to continue retaining ballots without an order from a court of competent jurisdiction," Ford wrote in her June letter to four political parties.

The case should go beyond Superior Court, because the ballots should be considered as evidence of tampering with the RTA votes, Risner said.

"We'll be asking the attorney general to step in and stop the destruction of what we believe is important evidence of a large crime," Risner said.

At a press conference, Risner provided copies of an affidavit from Zbigniew Osmolski, a former county transportation worker, saying a county election worker he met with at a bar told him the RTA election was "fixed" on orders from his bosses.

The same election worker, however, swore under oath in the recent court case that there was no deliberate improper handling of the ballots.

Several county officials also called for the documents to be preserved.

Richard Elías, Board of Supervisors chairman, said he thinks the ballots should be recounted for the accurate result of the election.

Supervisors Ramón Valadez and Sharon Bronson sent a letter to Ford Wednesday stating their strong objection to the destruction of the documents.

"The destruction of the ballots would serve neither the best interest of the public nor the interest of Pima County government," the two wrote.

County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry sent a memo to County Attorney Barbara LaWall Wednesday asking that the ballots be kept until the Democratic Party's analysis of the databases is completed.

In the letter, Huckelberry asked LaWall to seek an order from the court to protect Ford from any liability for keeping the documents longer than the statute requires.