Scottish independence referendum: Scotland votes no - as it happened

From political correspondent Rowena Mason in London backing up what we’re hearing elsewhere about Aberdeenshire:

A senior Labour source told the Guardian it looks like the yes campaign will lose in Salmond’s backyard of Aberdeenshire.

This is from the Specator’s James Forsyth.

The YouGov poll, remember, is pointing towards an eight-point no lead. AS

We’re due to get the result from Clackmannanshire soon. This was seen as one of the best areas for yes. (It gets a 10 out of 10 on the Credit Suisse rating - see here.)

This is from STV’s Peter Smith.

Guardian leader writer and polling expert Tom Clark is at the count in Edinburgh, and he’s going to be providing us with analysis of the results throughout the night.

He says something “pretty historic” is happening in terms of the turnouts recorded so far.

We haven’t had turnout of even 70% since 1997 in a UK general election; we haven’t had turnout of 80% since the 1950s.

According to the BBC’s Ross Hawkins, Aberdeenshire is going no.

According to the Credit Suisse analysis, Aberdeenshire had a yes rating of 7 out of 10.

This explains why Alex Salmond was not keen to be there. (See here.) AS

This is from the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

Counters in Glasgow are looking through ballot papers looking for 10 possible cases of electoral fraud, Libby Brooks reports.

Ten ballot papers are suspected of having been cast through impersonation - where an individual presents themselves at the polling station only to find that their name has already been crossed off the register and that someone appears to have voted in their place.

Count officials say that they know which ballot boxes these papers came from, and counters are now going through to match the serial numbers of the offending papers.

This is of course a criminal offence, so counters are using blue gloves in order not to contaminate the papers further with fingerprints.

Electoral officials point out that there are only ten cases in a count of around 483,000 and that these incidents should be kept in perspective.

Alberto Nardelli, data editor, writes about the turnout figures so far:

The first official numbers of the evening - turnout in Orkney (84%), Inverclyde (87%), Renfrewshire (87%) and Clackmannanshire (89%) - alongside postal voting in excess of 90% in many parts of Scotland, are a very very early indication that the polls were right about turnout. Most polls were anticipating turnout well in excess of 80%, with Ipsos MORI even showing the figure above 90%. Turnout so far is on about 87%.

The Dundee turnout has also just been announced, about which the Guardian’s James Ball says:

The Dundee turnout figures of 78.8% are looking quite interesting as we grab on to any early signals – there are still no results in – as to how the result might look.

A 78.8% turnout would in any normal election be a huge figure, but when compared to other regions where we’ve heard the counts, it’s quite low – many areas so far look like they’ll have turnout in the high 80s.

This could be quite a bad omen for the yes campaign, as Dundee is one of the regions regarded as most likely to return a yes vote. If that’s right, lower turnout in an area like this won’t do the electoral maths for yes any favours at all. But the night is still young.

Sixteen year olds voting for the first time, Catalans in Scotland to offer their solidarity, and an undecided dog ... here is a gallery of your take on referendum day. Add your images here.

Whoever wins tonight, Scotland has clearly been divided by this referendum, and you can see that in the fact that while in Aberdeen the leader of the independence campaign Alex Salmond is not expected to show up at his local count, in pro-yes Dundee a number of pro-union Liberal Democrats appear not to have made it to the count. PO

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