scotland Tensions mount in final hours before independence vote

Associated Press

EDINBURGH, Scotland

For Scots, Wednesday was a day of excitement, apprehension and a flood of final appeals before a big decision. In a matter of hours, they would determine whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and becomes an independent state.

A full 97 percent of those eligible have registered to vote — including, for the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds — in a referendum that polls suggest is too close to call.

A phone poll of 1,373 people by Ipsos MORI, released Wednesday, put opposition to independence at 51 percent and support at 49 percent, with 5 percent of voters undecided.

That means neither side can feel confident, given the margin of error of about plus or minus three percentage points.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot, told a No campaign rally that the quiet majority of pro-Union Scots “will be silent no more,” while pro-independence leader Alex Salmond urged voters to seize a democratic opportunity 307 years in the making.

In its final hours, the battle for Scotland had all the trappings of a normal election campaign: “Yes Scotland” and “No, Thanks” posters in windows, buttons on jackets, leaflets on street corners and megaphone-topped campaign cars cruising the streets blasting out Scottish songs and “Children of the Revolution.”

But it is, both sides acknowledge, a once-in-a-generation — maybe once-in-a-lifetime — choice that could redraw the map of the United Kingdom.

Politicians on both sides expressed confidence in the Scottish public, but uncertainty rippled below the surface.