AUBURN – Tuesday’s special City Council election will be counted the old fashioned way.

Poll workers will forego the city’s automatic ballots and counting machine for paper and hand counting in the vote to select a new Ward 4 city councilor.

“There’s the cost of programming the machine and then printing the special ballots,” City Clerk Mary Lou Magno said. She estimated preparations for the special vote would have been $2,200. Instead, the city printed ballots on plain white paper.

“It shouldn’t take us too long to count them by hand,” she said. “It’s only one ward.”

Ward 4 covers the southwest portion of the city, from just north of Minot Avenue west to Poland and from just southeast of Washington Street south to New Gloucester. Magno said the ward has about 3,200 registered voters and 2,341 of them voted in November’s presidential election.

Bruce Bickford resigned his seat on the council in November after winning election to the state House of Representatives.

Three candidates are competing to finish Bickford’s two-year term: Kenneth Bellefleur of 100 Royal River Road; John E. Morin of 60 Danbury Drive; and David C. Young of 1167 Old Danville Road.

The winner, if he chooses, will be up for re-election again in November, along with the rest of the Auburn City Council and Mayor John Jenkins.

The sole polling place for the special ballot will be Fairview Elementary School. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Magno said unofficial results will be posted the city’s Web site as soon as the ballots are counted.