COUNTING is underway of the votes in the Assembly election.
A total of 276 candidates are competing for 108 seats across Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies.
Foyle is one of the hotly contested constituencies with Sinn Fein and the SDLP battling it out to see who will win the most seats.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood is hoping his party cant see off the Sinn Fein campaign and retain three seats in Foyle.
Polling stations closed 10 pm Thursday nights and the first results are expected on Friday this afternooon.
The votes first have to be verified – checking that the same number of papers are inside the ballot boxes as those given out by polling station staff.
More than 2,000 staff are involved in counting the votes. On Thursday night, more than 1,000 ballot boxes were moved to eight different counting centres across the North.
They have to count up the first preferences, before embarking on the time-consuming task of distributing transfer votes from popular politicians with surpluses and from the less fortunate who find themselves eliminated.
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