Voters in Montana are used to mailing in their ballots for school and local government elections. But it doesn't look like voters will have that option in federal elections. A bill that would have allowed counties the ability to choose the mail ballot option has stalled in the House State Administration Committee, and that has local election officials rethinking their options.

The failure of Senate Bill 394  has county election officials looking at reducing the number of polling places, because of escalating costs.

One option under consideration is to use MetraPark as a single large voting site, while smaller communities near Billings would still keep their separate precincts.

Yellowstone County elections administrator Duane Winslow says his office is essentially running three elections -- the polling places, absentee ballots plus same day registration.

50% of ballots counted this last election were absentee ballots, and 800 people registered on the last day, causing quite a crunch in Winslow's office.

Winslow says consolidating polling places would save the county between $25,000 to $30,000 and most importantly, it would also ease the pressure on the number of handicap accessible voting machines.

"I really don't think the mail ballot process should be looked at as a partisan issue," Winslow said. "It really doesn't, I don't think favor one party over the other. The thing I like about mail ballots, one of the main things is it kind of levels the playing field for everyone. Everybody gets a ballot, this bill would've given the counties the option for the counties to do a mail ballot election in the federals. No requirement there, nothing saying they had to do it."

We spoke with Democrat Representatives Arlene Becker and Margaret McDonald -- both voted against the bill. They say it would adversely affect inactive voters who have moved or not voted in the last election.

Winslow says he'll be meeting as early as next week with county commissioners to discuss their options.