KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 ― All polling stations in Johor’s 56 state constituencies have now officially closed, marking the start of vote counting.
As of 4pm today, around 50 per cent of the 2,539,606 ordinary voters eligible to cast their ballots in the state election went out to exercise their voting rights at 1,021 polling stations across the state.
The Election Commission (EC) is expected to announce the exact number and percentage of voter turnout for today’s election when it confirms the results tonight.
In the voting process today, polling centres with one or two channels that closed earlier as gazetted are at Balai Raya Pulau Besar in Mersing, which closed at 11am; Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Pulau Pemanggil, Mersing (1pm); 15 polling centres closed at 2pm and 41 others at 4pm.
The remaining polling centres closed at 6pm.
Crucially, the state polls will go down in the history books as the first time that voters aged 18 to 21 get to participate in the election process in Malaysia.
There are 749,731 of these new voters. Total eligible voters in the state for the 2018 general election were roughly 1.8 million.
There are 239 candidates from 15 political parties contesting for 56 state seats in this state election.
