Voting period for the Presidential Election 2019, which was carried out at 12,845 polling stations island-wide, came to an end a short while ago.

A total number of 15,992,096 voters have qualified to exercise their franchise in this tight competition among two frontrunners and 33 other contenders.

Voting was carried out across the island under tight security of over 68,000 Police and civil defence personnel.

As of 3.30 pm, the highest voter turnout was reported from Ratnapura electoral district which was 79%.

The voters will see the longest ever ballot paper printed in Sri Lanka, which is nearly 2 feet long. The Department of Printing previously said more than 17 million ballot papers were printed for this election.

Taking the length of the ballot paper into consideration, this time the Election Commission decided to extend the voting period, which usually comes to an end at 4.00 pm, to facilitate the voters to find their desired election contender’s name in this elongated slip of paper. The voters were accordingly allowed to register their votes until 5.00 pm in the evening.

The Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) said the polling was largely peaceful.

Counting ballot papers is set to commence at 5.30 pm in the evening, the Election Commission’s chairman said yesterday.

A total of 1,550 ballot paper counting centres, including 371 for postal vote counting, have been set up island-wide to facilitate the process.