Mexico heeds UN rights body's request to shelve plans to destroy 2006 presidential ballots

MEXICO CITY – Mexican electoral authorities say they are abandoning plans to destroy ballots from the hotly disputed 2006 presidential election after a U.N. human rights commission asked the government to hold off.

The president of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute says storing the ballots has cost Mexico about $8.7 million over the last six years. But Leonardo Valdes said Wednesday that Mexico will heed the request and continue to hold the ballots at a warehouse until all concerns are resolved.

Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador claimed vote fraud after he lost the 2006 race to Felipe Calderon by a razor-thin margin of just over a half-percentage point. A partial recount of about 9 percent of ballots carried out soon after the election didn't change the results. Calderon leaves office Dec. 1.