http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/world/europe/high-turnout-in-tight-vote-as-the-result-is-awaited-.html 2014-09-19 07:13:42 High Turnout in Tight Vote as the Result Is Awaited The ballot count has been careful and slow, with early word suggesting that the movement for Scotland to remain part of Britain was ahead. === EDINBURGH — With the future of the United Kingdom in the balance, Scots turned out to vote in large numbers across the varied landscape of their country, with early results before dawn on Friday showing those against independence in the lead. With polls closing Thursday at 10 p.m., the count of paper ballots with a single question has been careful and slow. Early results brought some relief to the anti-independence “Better Together” campaign, which won in central Clackmannanshire, the remote Orkney Islands, Shetland and the Western Isles, which had been considered a “yes” stronghold and reported its results in Gaelic. Strikingly for some, Dundee, considered an important stronghold for pro-independence voters and known as “yes city,” voted yes but by a relatively small margin of 57 percent. The yes campaign fell short in Inverclyde, another relatively large constituency, where the noes won a bare majority there of 86 votes. Results from the big cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow were not expected for several hours, and turnout across Scotland was very high, in places over 90 percent of those registered to vote. But with half the 32 constituencies reporting, the “no” vote was ahead, 56 percent to 44 percent. The leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Ruth Davidson, told the BBC she was confident that the “silent majority” of Scots would deliver a “no” victory, but the “yes” campaign said it was too early to predict the outcome. Voters remained divided to the end. “It’s much easier to say yes,” said Sandra Love, 52, an officer manager and member of the opposition Labour Party, outside a polling station in a bustling neighborhood of Glasgow. “But sometimes you have to say no.” Whatever the outcome, she added, “everyone needs to accept it and move forward.” Duncan Sim, a university lecturer who said he had always been in favor of independence, was handing out “yes” fliers at the same polling station. He also worried about a country that would be split down the middle, no matter the result. “It will be a big challenge to hold people together,” he said. “Hopefully, we will still all get on after the vote.” In Edinburgh, a steady stream of voters filed into polling stations from the moment they opened, at 7 a.m., under murky skies and fog that swathed the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle. On one of the city’s bridges, a “yes” voter, mimicking cartoon prophets of doom, held up a placard proclaiming, “The Beginning is Nigh.” In bars and along thoroughfares across this city and many others, the issue consumed conversations, reflecting a sense that, with the conclusion only hours away, many who participated were about to witness history in the making. In Glasgow, Urszula Bolechowska, 34, a Scot of Polish origin, took her 7-year-old son William along with her as she voted in favor of independence. “I want him to remember this day,” she said.