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PHOENIX — Backers of a measure designed to wipe out government affirmative action programs filed suit late Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to put the proposal before voters.

The lawsuit says Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell improperly struck the names of many of the people who signed petitions to put Proposition 104 on the ballot. Attorney Tim Casey hopes to get a judge to agree.

But first Casey will need to convince a judge to immediately halt the printing of the ballots. County election officials said they plan to start printing the part of the general-election ballot with the initiatives today.

And Deputy Secretary of State Kevin Tyne said Wednesday the pamphlets describing the eight remaining ballot measures, which go to the homes of every registered voter, have already been sent to the printer without any mention of this one.

Casey said, though, that's not his problem. He said state law allows a lawsuit to be filed up to 10 days after an organization is notified by the Secretary of State's Office that it is being denied ballot status, something that did not happen until last Thursday.

What's at issue is a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar any preferences in public employment, education or contracting based on race, sex, ethnicity and other factors. The measure is being pushed in Arizona and two other states this year by Ward Connerly, who got virtually identical language put in the California Constitution in 1996.

Backers of the measure, dubbed the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, submitted petitions in July with nearly 335,000 signatures.

Secretary of State Jan Brewer threw out petitions with more than 9,000 names as being invalid. And then county recorders, checking a random sample of 5 percent of the remaining names, determined that 40 percent of them were not from registered voters or there were other problems.

All that, Brewer said, left Proposition 104 with just 194,961 valid signatures, with 230,047 needed to place the issue on the ballot.