Those who want to find live results of the EU referendum vote will have plenty of options to follow up-to-date voting totals from Thursday’s Brexit vote and the possibility of a Britain leaving the European Union.
Voters across Britain will head to the polls for a historic vote, one that could see the nation renounce its membership in the European Union. A total of 46.5 million people are eligible to take part in Thursday’s voting, with polls opening at 07:00 BST and closing at 22:00 BST.
Live voting results can be seen in the embedded video, with a link to more Brexit voting totals below.
Those who follow live results of the EU referendum will likely see a razor-thin margin between the Leave and Remain options. Brexit polls show that voters were split almost equally between the two, with the Remain option making up ground in the last week to end in a virtual tie as Thursday’s voting began, the Telegraph reported.
Remain secures narrow lead in final EU referendum poll https://t.co/1LxzpEWTwL
— Evening Standard (@standardnews) June 23, 2016
The Remain option held a wider lead, but support whittled down through an intense and sometime misleading campaign, with both sides accused of fear-mongering and using exaggerations to sway voters.
Jeremy Paxman’s EU referendum debate gets 1.6m viewers’ vote https://t.co/YoCx1IKicu
— The Guardian (@guardian) June 23, 2016
As the Telegraph noted, support for remaining in the European Union has seen similar shifts over large periods of time as well.
“In the early 1980s support for Europe was its lowest level but by the early 1990s it reached its peak.
The mid-1990s saw the gap between the ‘stay in’ and ‘get out’ camps narrow significantly and on occasion ‘Brexit’ has been a more popular option.”
Since 2014 support for staying in the European Union increased once again.
Those who want to follow live results of the EU referendum could have a very long night ahead of them, The Independent noted. Voting results will be counted by local authority areas, with the results then passed along to regional centers that will declare their own results before passing over to the central counting center in Manchester. Final results of the European Union referendum are expected to be declared by breakfast time on Friday.
A complete list of what time each local authority area will declare results can be found here .
There were already some complications to the EU referendum vote on Thursday. London and southeast England were drenched with thunderstorms that led to flooding overnight, and two polling places in London had to be moved after they were inundated with water, the BBC reported.
The Brexit vote brought out the biggest politicians in the U.K. and led to often bitter debates. Prime Minister David Cameron is the biggest proponent of the Remain campaign, and spent the week giving speeches across Britain to drum up support.
“It is a fact that our economy will be weaker if we leave and stronger if we stay,” he told supporters in Birmingham (via the Guardian ).
Much of the debate has centered around immigration, with a growing streak of populism pushing the Leave campaign. Many have said that getting out from under control of the EU would give Britain more control over immigration and benefits given to those immigrants.
But this grew divisive at times, with accusations that Leave supporters were using fear-mongering. That may have come to a head last week with the murder of lawmaker Jo Cox, a pro-Europe MP who was shot to death in her district.
Backers of the Remain campaign admit that immigration is an issues that needs to be addressed, but they said it could be done within the EU.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a Remain supporter, agreed that immigration was a pressing issue for Britain.
“They raise issues of poverty, they raise issues of housing, they raise issues of health; and yes they raise issues of immigration, all these issues are raised; but if you have a rational discussion with people, as I try to do, and don’t do it with rancor, you don’t do with personal abuse, then you get a hearing.”
Those who want to follow live results of the EU referendum can click here to find up-to-date voting totals from Thursday’s Brexit vote.
[Photo by Tim Ireland/AP Images]