The 2009 Honolulu Neighborhood Board elections will be the first paperless elections in the state after the city Neighborhood Commission approved allowing voters to use the Internet or telephone to select their candidates.

Following testimony from about 15 neighborhood board members, including many who voiced concerns about security, the commission voted 6-1 to approve the proposal shortly before 10 last night.

The commission has allowed some online voting, incorporating it with traditional balloting for the first time in the 2007 elections, when about 10 percent of those who voted cast their ballots online.

"The budget pushed us to where we would have ended up anyway," said neighborhood commissioner Brendan S. Bailey, an attorney with Proservice Hawai'i and chairman of a permitted interaction group on elections formed this year. "There are real benefits to the community in the method that we selected."

The paperless option the commission approved would cost $154,625.

Paper ballots would cost the city $294,913, according to an estimate prepared by the commission. About $83,000 in budget cuts has forced the city Neighborhood Board Commission to make the move.

There is $180,000 in the budget this year for neighborhood board elections.

City Council Chairman Todd K. Apo said paperless voting for board elections not only saves money but could serve as a model for possible future implementation in larger elections.

"Obviously, in this economy you have to look at cost-saving measures that make sense," he said. "We need to have a good evaluation of what works I hope the state election office keeps an eye on the results as well to see if it can work at the next level."

Voters will log on to a Web site or vote by phone. Those without access to computers could go to polling places where banks of computers would be available. A mailer with instructions for the 2009 paperless elections will be sent out prior to the May elections.