Pushpins are out and ballpoint pens are in for Tuesday’s election when Rowan County’s new voting system will get its first countywide test.

If all goes well, results could be in by 8 p.m., wiping out the tradition of waiting until midnight for the final precincts to report.

After years of problems with the old system, county commissioners agreed to buy the $300,000 system from Global Systems of Mc-Kinney, Texas.

A few machines were tested in the municipal election last fall.

The big change for voters will be in the size and appearance of the ballot.

Voters will get an 81

Black ballpoint pens will be provided. Voters fill in the oval adjacent to their choice.

If you make a mistake and black in the wrong oval, you should ask for a new ballot. Once you have completed marking the ballot, just insert it in the machine, which counts it and drops it in a storage compartment.

The machine will count the ballot whether it’s inserted upside down, or backward, or any combination.

When the polls close at 7:30 p.m., elections officials will push a couple of buttons, insert an “end” card, and it will put out a cash register tape, giving the vote total in each race.

The device will also electronically call in to the elections office computer and download the vote totals electronically.

Nancy Evans, elections director, said a representative of Global Elections Systems will be on hand Tuesday for the system’s debut.

All machines have been thoroughly checked and no problems have been found.

Evans said there are still a few precincts that don’t have access to phone line that will transmit the data. That problem is being resolved.

Precinct workers have had extensive training on the new system.

Although the ballots and counting mechanisms are new, the county is still using much of its old equipment.

The same booths will be used to provide voter privacy. And the same metal ballot boxes will be used to store and transport the ballots.

The machine actually sorts ballots into two separate compartments. If a ballot is blank, or somehow spoiled, or has a write-in it will be automatically shot into a separate compartment.

Write-ins are allowed in only one race, the non-partisan Kannapolis Board of Education election. Only voters in Kannapolis precincts will have that contest on their ballots.

Vote totals will be displayed on a large screen in the upstairs commissioners meeting room of the County Administrative Offices at 130 W. Innes St.