FREDERICTON - Election officials in New Brunswick say a few lessons were learned, but overall they are pleased with new machines used to count ballots in Monday's municipal elections.

For the first time in Canada, vote-tabulation machines were used for the entire province.

Chief electoral officer Michael Quinn had estimated that all results would be known within 60 to 90 minutes of the polls closing, but instead it took just over three hours.

Paul Harpelle of Elections New Brunswick says some polling stations still had lineups when the polls closed and those people were allowed to vote.

He says more than 1,000 special ballots in Edmundston weren't fed into a machine until after the polls closed and that took quite a bit of time.

Harpelle says the overall time was still an improvement over previous elections, and officials will meet next month to find ways to improve the system for next time.

Election officials from across Canada and some from the United States travelled to New Brunswick to view the electronic tabulation system.

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