KLUANG, A total of 8.89 per cent of the eligible voters in the Mahkota by-election have cast their ballots as of 9 am today, according to the Election Commission (EC). All the 20 polling centres involving 109 channels were opened simultaneously at 8 am for the 61,274 eligible voters to fulfil their responsibility of electing the new state assemblyman. The weather was good and checks by Bernama at several polling centres showed that voting was proceeding smoothly. The polling centres will close at 6 pm, after which vote-tallying will be conducted at Dewan Tunku Ibrahim Ismail here. There are 66,318 registered voters for the by-election, and early voting was held on Tuesday for 4,437 military personnel and their spouses, and police personnel. For this by-election, EC also issued 607 postal ballots on Sept 15. The by-election is a straight fight between Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate Syed Hussien Syed Abdullah and Perikatan Nasional's Mohamad Haizan Jaafar. Source: BERNAMA News Agency