Fourteen polling stations closed at 6pm while six closed earlier – four of them at 2pm and the other two at 3pm.

Immediately after the polling stations closed, all ballot boxes from 46 voting channels were transported to the official vote-tallying centre at Dewan Perdana, Kompleks Perdana, Gua Musang district council here.

Two helicopters were used to facilitate the vote-tallying process for the Orang Asli settlements of Pos Gob and Pos Simpor, which are 116km and 100km from Bandar Gua Musang, respectively.

The Election Commission (EC) said the official results would be announced by returning officer Nik Raisnan Daud as early as 9pm.

A total of 20,216 of the 20,259 registered voters were eligible to vote today as 43 postal ballots had been issued by the EC earlier.

As of 4pm, the EC reported that the voter turnout was 71.87%.

The by-election is a straight fight between Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Azmawi Fikri Abdul Ghani, representing the unity government, and PAS candidate Rizwadi Ismail, representing Perikatan Nasional (PN).

It was called after Kelantan state assembly Speaker Amar Nik Abdullah declared the seat vacant on June 19 after being informed that its assemblyman, Azizi Abu Naim, had ceased to be a member of Bersatu on June 13.

In the Kelantan state election on Aug 15 last year, Azizi defeated BN candidate Ab Aziz Yussof by a majority of 810 votes.