WITH TODAY being election day, and polls closing in two hours, we thought we’d dispense with the usual wrap-up of electionary movers and shakers (well, mostly because the campaign trail went cold today) and instead give you a heads-up on how we’re covering events tomorrow.

As the first results begin to come in from around the country, you’ll be able to follow the state of affairs of the 31st Dáil through our simple-to-follow widget on the top-right of every page on TheJournal.ie – you’ll see it up there now.

Click on the big ‘National Election Results‘ heading on that and you’ll be through to our interactive results maps, where you can see – at a glance – how each count is progressing.

You can hover over each constituency to see how many of the seats have been filled – and you can just click on that constituency to see who’s been elected from that constituency so far.

Clicking through for more details on each of the constituencies, you can get the most up-to-date details on who’s still in the running: each candidate will have one of three statuses, ‘Elected’, ‘Eliminated’ or ‘Contending’.

Beside their picture there’ll also be a number – telling you the count on which they were elected or eliminated. (Every count results in either an election or an elimination, so you’ll know pretty easily how advanced each count is.)

Also tomorrow, to give a slightly more bite-sized indication of what’s going on as the votes tumble out of the boxes, we’ll be publishing a ‘Half-Past Fix‘, every hour on the half-hour, regularly updating you on the state of play nationwide.

And, of course, our Twitter page – @thejournal_ie – and our Elections 2011 Facebook page – will also be updated constantly to give you as much details as we can manage.

So no matter where you are, you can come to TheJournal.ie for the latest news on the winners, the losers, and those still biting their fingernails as the membership of the 31st Dáil is revealed up and down the country.

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Turnout in today’s election has been swift around the country, with particularly high turnouts recorded across the country before the traditional ‘tea-time rush’ of votes, as the country’s employees leave work.

Turnout at 5pm was averaging around 40 per cent nationwide – and with the majority of votes traditionally cast in the hours before polling closes, the turnout in this election is set to dwarf the 67 per cent recorded in 2007.

There were a number of small glitches, however – voters in Wexford Town had difficulty getting to one polling station after a wartime era shell was found in a house near a polling station, though voting remained interrupted.

In Galway, meanwhile, one polling station in Salthill closed briefly after the floor of the assembly hall, in which voting was taking place, began to sag under the weight.

In Dublin, the students’ union at Trinity College says ‘hundreds’ of its members were turned away from polling stations, claiming their applications to be included on the supplementary register of electors were not processed in time by Dublin City Council. The council denies this, however.

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If you haven’t voted yet, it’s not too late – you can still check out our list of candidates in your constituency (or check our map if you’re not sure which constituency you live in!).

There’s also our guide to how the single transferable vote actually works, allowing you to get the best value out of your vote in this critical election.