CAIRO
By Khaled Eid
Vote-counting for Egypt's constitutional referendum will begin as soon as polling ends on Wednesday at 9pm local time, Egypt's electoral commission announced.
Commission spokesman Hisham Mokhtar said that vote-counting would be carried out separately at each polling center as soon as centers were closed to voting.
Mokhtar said some polling centers could remain open beyond 9pm if there were still voters who wished to cast ballots.
He added that the electoral commission would receive vote results from polling stations throughout Thursday and Friday, without providing a date for the announcement of the final results.
However, an electoral commission source told Anadolu Agency that an official announcement would be made on Saturday at 6pm local time at a press conference at the headquarters of the State Information Service.
Around 53 million Egyptians are eligible to cast ballots at some 30,600 polling centers nationwide.
The two-day constitutional vote, which began at 9am Tuesday, is being held amid tight security. The army has deployed some 160,000 soldiers and officers to secure the balloting, while the Interior Ministry has deployed around 220,000 policemen countrywide.
The army-installed interim administration has aggressively campaigned for a massive turnout in hopes of showing popular support for the army-backed government's transitional roadmap.
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