Latest elections news from across EU member states, including the UK which is taking part after Brexit negotiations stalledFinal votes cast as EU awaits parliamentary election resultsWhat the UK pollsters are forecasting 6.18pm BST The count for the south east of England is now underway at Southampton´s civic centre. Nigel Farage, who has been an MEP for the constituency since 1999, is expected to arrive at the venue after 9pm. The first turnout figures for the UK show the area covering Birmingham at 31.1% (down from 32.4% in 2014), while the turnout for the south east in the European elections is 39.36%, which is up from 36.3% in 2014.And they´re off. Counting under way in Edinburgh #EuElection2019 pic.twitter.com/uv7oa7vywl 6.15pm BST The centre-right Austrian People´s Party (ÖVP) of chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, performed strongly in the Alpine state, where the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) suffered less severely than expected from a recent corruption scandal.Exit polls saw Kurz´s conservatives as the strongest party on 34.5% of the vote, up by 7.5% on the previous elections. The centre-left SPÖ came second on 23.5% but performed slightly less well than in 2014.Austria´s political landscape has over the last week been shaken up by the emergence of a video showing Freedom party leader and vice-chancellor, Heinz-Christian Strache, offering a purported Russian heiress lucrative public contracts in exchange for campaign support. Strache resigned from government, and the remaining FPÖ ministers have been fired or resigned from office since.But the rightwing populist party fared better in the European elections than many had expected, with their share of the vote only down by 2.2 percentage points, at 17.5%. 6.03pm BST The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, was among the first to cast a ballot in his home city and Sicilian capital of Palermo early on Sunday morning, but turnout on the southern island was at midday just 8.7%, the lowest in the country, with many p ...
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