SOME 21.1 million Malaysians will be casting their votes today (Nov 19) in the 15th General Election.

Of the 21,173,638 voters in the country, 265,531 are early voters who had cast their ballots on Tuesday (Nov 15). Early voters comprise qualified military, police and General Operations Force personnel as well as their spouses.

Nearly 1.4 million individuals between the ages of 18 and 20 are also eligible to vote in this election.

This is the first time in a general election that Malaysians aged 18 to 20 are allowed to vote, after Parliament passed a law to lower the minimum voting age from 21.

Nationwide, there are 20,905,366 ordinary voters. Another 146,737 are from the Armed Forces (and their spouses) while 118,794 are police personnel and their spouses.

According to Election Commission records, there are also 2,741 absent voters based overseas.

A total of 9,560 polling centres comprising 38,990 polling streams will be opened from 8am to 6pm in the peninsula, and 7.30am to 5.30pm in Sabah and Sarawak.

Some 1,379 candidates will be contesting 222 parliamentary seats as well as 117 state seats in Perak, Perlis, Pahang and the lone state constituency of Bugaya in Sabah.

A simple majority of 112 parliamentary seats will be needed to form the Federal Government.