Polls are open in Scotland for the referendum on independence. In accordance with standard British practice they are open 7am to 10pm (British Summer Time is in force, one hour ahead of GMT).
it is estimated that 97% of the eligible population has registered to vote. That includes young people from their 16th birthday, the usual voting age is 18-plus.
Voting is by paper ballots. Counting is by hand.
This BBC link gives further details.
If you are thinking of sitting up to follow the results, remember these counts are very different to US election counts.
There is no such thing as releasing the figures for the equivalent of an individual 'precinct' called a 'polling station' over here.. So you wont see creeping tally bars with only a few percent of 'precincts reported'... The ballot boxes are all taken to a series of counting centres one for each of the 32 'Local Authorities' in Scotland.
The figures for each counting centre will be checked and tabulated in that centre.
The basic procedure is that when all the ballot boxes for the authority are in the centre (and not before) the boxes are opened in public one by one and the papers counted (but not sorted) to verify that the number of papers in the box match the number of papers issued in the polling place. They must do this exactly. (There is a parallel system of checks for papers from advance voters).
When ALL the ballot boxes and advance voter packages in a particular centre have been checked and the ballot figure verified we will get a declaration on 'turnout'. Only when we know the turnout figure will the actual count of the papers into Yes and No piles start. The final 'Yes' 'No' and 'spoilt papers' figures MUST add up to the turnout figure exactly, no variation even by a single vote.
When ALL the papers at a particular centre have been counted the result for the WHOLE of that centre will be declared as an overall figure. so we WILL see interim results in the news at this stage. These will be from the smaller authorities probably, and there may be a lot of speculation as to whether these give good indications of the final balance..
we WILL then see interim result columns based on these local declarations, which will not be subject to change unless there is a local recount and this only if there is some reason to suspect a substantial procedural error. No recounts for closeness of result.
When all the centres have declared, a central counting authority officially adds up the figures and an official result declared. That result is legally binding - there are no provisions for a national recount.
From 10pm Scottish Time the BBC will be running a live online results stream.