Voters go to the polls in historic EU referendum

Today, Thursday 23rd June 2016, voters throughout the United Kingdom will go to the polls in a historic referendum on whether the UK should remain in the European Union or leave.

Polling stations will be open across the UK between 7.00am and 10.00pm with an estimated 46,499,537 people entitled to take part in the vote.

The last referendum regarding the UK’s ties with Europe took place on Thursday 5th June 1975 when a referendum was held on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Economic Community.

This time the ballot paper asks the question: ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?‘ The choice that gets more than 50% of the votes cast will be the one considered to have won.

Once the referendum polls close at 10.00pm the sealed ballot boxes will taken to the count venue for each of the 382 local counting areas.

Throughout the night the individual area results will be declared together results from the regional counts.

It is estimated by that a final result is expected on Friday 24th June 2016. The official final national result will be declared by the Chief Counting Officer who will be based at Manchester Town Hall.