KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 ― Close to half of the 2.6 million of Johor’s eligible voters have cast their ballots as of 2pm, the Election Commission (EC) announced this evening.

With just three hours left for polling, 40 per cent or roughly 1.03 million votes have been cast.

A total of 1,021 polling stations opened at 8am for the voting process today to allow 2,539,606 ordinary voters, out of 2,597,742 registered voters, to exercise their right.

Crucially, the state polls will go down in the history books as the first time that voters aged 18 to 21 get to participate in the election process in Malaysia.

There are 749,731 of these new voters. Total eligible voters in the state for the 2018 general election was roughly 1.8 million.

There are 239 candidates from 15 political parties contesting for 56 state seats in this state election.

The Opposition had said it would need a high turnout to repeat the historic 2018 feat that saw the state that birthed incumbent Umno grabbed by Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Most pollsters predict Umno to win despite strong pressure from PH and the newly formed pact Perikatan Nasional.