BREAKING: First exit poll suggests Scotland’s ‘No’ campaign has won

BREAKING:  From The Western Morning News (link):  ”

The first exit poll on the vote for Scotland’s independence suggests the ‘No’ campaign has won, meaning more people want the country to remain a part of the United Kingdom.

A poll by YouGov last night predicted that the No campaign won the referendum with 54% of the vote.

The ‘Yes’ to independence campaign held 46% of the vote in the survey and YouGov said it had based the prediction on the responses of 1,828 people after they voted yesterday, together with the votes of 800 people who had already voted by post.

The YouGov survey, which was carried out during the day of the referendum vote, was published shortly after polls closed earlier and suggested “No” was on 54% and “Yes” on 46%.

Campaigners and onlookers across the world are now waiting for official confirmation that the country will remain in the United Kingdom or whether the final count will reveal a different picture.

A Yes vote in the historic ballot would have seen the 307-year-old union between Scotland and the rest of the UK brought to an end.

After a some two-and-a-half years of campaigning, people across Scotland finally had their say yesterday, with many staying up throughout the night as the count took place for the official result.

The result was always expected to go down to the wire, with polls in the last two weeks of the campaign suggesting the result was too close to call, until the first indication of how the final picture might look with the exit poll from YouGov.

The Queen, residing at what is widely considered to be her favourite royal residence, Balmoral, was last said by royal officials to be following the developments of the referendum ‘very closely’, it was reported.

Voting opened at 7am and ended at 10pm last night, with the turnout thought to have been one of the highest on record.

A total of 4,283,392 people were registered to vote, with 16 and 17-year-olds across the country permitted to take part in the vote for the first time.

As soon as Scotland’s 2,608 polling places closed, work began to transport hundreds of ballot boxes to counting centres in each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities.

The number of ballot papers in each box was being counted by a 5,767-strong counting team and the total was due to be reported to the chief counting officer (CCO) who could then authorise the local counting officer to announce the turnout.

The results were being declared in each individual council area, and when all the totals were in, chief counting officer Mary Pitcaithly was set to announce what the nation had decided at the central count centre at Royal Highland Centre outside Edinburgh.