Polls in the Brexit referendum close Thursday evening across Britain at 10 p.m. BST, which is 5 p.m. Eastern time and 2 p.m. Pacific time. In last year’s general election, exit polls allowed the TV networks to correctly predict that the Conservative Party had won a narrow majority seconds after the voting ended. That won’t happen this time around, though.
The first result of the night is expected around 12:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. ET), probably from Sunderland. This city in northeast England takes outsize pride in counting votes quickly—the first declaration of the night has happened here in every British election since 1992. In fact, there’s a fierce rivalry among the city’s constituencies—in the 2015 election, Houghton & Sunderland West called a winner 48 minutes after voting ended. (Sunderland doesn’t have many other claims to fame. It’s home to a Premier League soccer team, and judging from his accent, it’s where Game of Thrones’ Ser Davos Seaworth grew up—but not the actor who plays him; Liam Cunningham is Irish.)
The counting will happen at 382 local centers, rather than at the constituency level. Sadly, this means we won’t get to see the wonderfully theatrical declarations that make British elections such fun to watch, nor will we hear great constituency names like Halesowen and Bognor Regis or Mole Valley.
The Guardian reckons that by 4 a.m. (11 p.m. ET), we’ll know how big cities like London, Manchester, and Glasgow voted, and unless the race is very tight, the overall result should be clear by 5 a.m. (midnight ET).
The final declaration is expected to be made at “breakfast time” on Friday morning, British time, so perhaps around 2 a.m. ET. The venue for the big announcement will be Manchester. Why there? The Electoral Commission was vague, but I like to think that my hometown was chosen in tribute to its inventiveness. As I wrote in 2004, Manchester was home to “the first factories, the first passenger railway, the first real canal, the first public bus service, the first industrial park, the first stored-program computer, and so much more.”
And yes, the referendum results are being televised in America. C-SPAN 2 will air a simulcast of referendum coverage from ITV, Britain’s main commercial network, starting at 5 p.m. And BBC World News will have special referendum programming starting at 6 p.m.
