More than 15,000 people registered their choices by pressing their fingers on the screens of voting machines at 43 polling stations in Niimi, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) southwest of Tokyo, as dozens of curious election officials from around the country looked on, a local official said.
The voting drew a national attention as other municipalities, as well as the central government, are considering the possibility of using the system in future elections.
Each voter inserts a plastic card about the size of a credit card into a machine and makes their pick from a list of candidates' names that pop up on the screen.
Countries such as Britain and Ireland have also introduced the method.
Results were announced 40 minutes after counting of the electronic ballots -- 90 percent of the entire vote -- began.
About 2,000 absentee ballots were on paper, but even with that manual counting, the entire process was expected to end in about two hours -- about half of the amount of time spent in previous elections, the official said. The new system would also eliminate chances of mistakes.
The electronic voting went smoothly except for an initial machine trouble that delayed issuing of voting cards for some 15 people, the official said.
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