Today’s voting process involves 61,274 voters. All polling centres will close at 6pm.

This will be followed by the vote tallying process, which will take place at the Dewan Tunku Ibrahim Ismail here.

The meteorological department has predicted good weather in Kluang this morning, but thunderstorms are expected in the afternoon.

The by-election sees a straight fight between Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Syed Hussien Syed Abdullah and Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Haizan Jaafar. Both are registered voters in the constituency.

There are a total of 66,318 registered voters for the Mahkota state constituency. Early voting for military personnel, their spouses and the police took place last Tuesday, and involved 4,437 voters.

The Election Commission has also issued 607 postal ballot papers on Sept 15, in addition to appointing 1,126 officers to handle the by-election process.

The Mahkota state by-election is being held following the death of its incumbent Sharifah Azizah Syed Zain on Aug 2.

Sharifah Azizah of BN won the seat in the 2022 state election with a majority of 5,166 votes in a four-cornered fight involving Pakatan Harapan (PH), PN and Warisan.

The Mahkota state seat was first contested in 2004 and has gone through five general elections with BN winning four of them.