by Bill Kotowski

Although municipal elections were held just a couple weeks ago, the Bingham County elections office decided to hold a special vote Wednesday.

The mock election was held to test out two new machines used to tally the ballots.

The machines arrived in Blackfoot in September but the county's election office decided not to use them in this months elections so workers could become familiar with them first.

In the past election officials would count votes by hand, sometimes until the early morning hours.

Election officials hope these new machines will speed up the process so voters can get results before going to bed.

Marlene Jensen, Bingham County Election Director: "We're really excited about our new machines and new system. I think we'll have our results in a more timely manner. We'll have two machines counting the votes at the same time."

The machines will be used to count votes in the May primaries.