POLITICIANS face an anxious wait throughout tonight to discover whether they have won Parliamentary and council seats in York and North Yorkshire.

Polls in the General Election and also two City of York Council by-elections close at 10pm tonight, followed by a lengthy and tiring count of the votes through the night by officials at Energise in Acomb.

Results for the York Central and York Outer constituencies - where Labour’s Rachael Maskell and Tory Julian Sturdy respectively were hoping to hold on to their seats - are not expected to be announced until between 4am and 6am tomorrow.

Turnout appeared to be reasonably high at polling stations in York today, with the weather - which can affect the numbers of voters deciding to head down to the polling station - not quite as wet in York as forecasters had expected, with showers but also brighter, warmer spells.

A spokeswoman for City of York Council said there appeared to have been huge interest in the election, on a par with the EU referendum of last year and ahead of that in the 2015 election.

She said that in the last few days before last month’s deadline for people to apply to register to vote, about 8,000 had done so in York - of whom about half intended to vote by post or by proxy and the rest by going to a polling station.

She added that more than 80 per cent of those eligible to vote by postal ballot had done so.

Tory councillor Chris Steward said there appeared to have been a ‘reasonable’ turnout, with the worst rainfall coming too early to affect numbers, other than those voting while on their way to work.

Lib Dem councillor Keith Aspden said that from talking to polling clerks and others, voting had been ‘steady.’ He said: “There’s been a steady trickle of voters going there.”

Labour party teller Matthew Laycock, helping to identify whether party supporters had voted at a polling station in Cemetery Road, said it had been busy, with a particularly noticeable number of young people turning up to vote.

Today's two council by-elections were in the Micklegate ward, triggered by the resignation of long-serving Labour councillor Julie Gunnell, and in the Hull Road ward, caused by the resignation of another Labour councillor, David Levene.

Meanwhile, dogs pictured at York polling stations, including a York white German Shepherd called Wolfie and a Jackapoo called Tees, stole the limelight on social media today, with #DogsAtPollingStationshaving having become a polling day tradition on Twitter.

*Go to www.yorkpress.co.uk this evening for live coverage of the count as the results come in, and see tomorrow’s edition of The Press - for full results of the Parliamentary elections in York, and North and East Yorkshire, and of the two York by-elections.