Hot News: Ontario election 2014: Liberals in lead as early results come in

The Liberals are out front early in the Ontario election, with 44 of their candidates leading or elected to 31 for the Progressive Conservatives and 14 for the NDP.

Results are pouring in from across the province as election staff crack open ballot boxes and start counting millions of slips of paper at 8,000-plus voting locations.

The polls closed at 9 p.m. except at six polling stations in three ridings where delays earlier in the day mean they will remain open up to an hour longer for voters. Results from those ridings won't be available until all their polls close, but results elsewhere will start to be available as of 9 o'clock.

Following a hard-fought campaign, the major party leaders are back in their hometowns to watch the results, while their candidates fret about whether they'll have a seat at Queen's Park in the next legislative session.

Given how close the parties were in a number of pre-election polls, the outcome of the election will likely depend on a dozen key battleground ridings. Those include races where the Progressive Conservatives would need to unseat Liberal incumbents to gather the seats they need to win, and a handful of others where the Liberals would have to knock off NDP and Tory incumbents if they hope to clamber into majority territory.

At dissolution, the Liberals held 48 seats in the 107-member Legislature, the PCs had 37 and the NDP held 21, with one vacancy.

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne began election day in Toronto with her usual morning jog, following which she cast her ballot in her riding of Don Valley West. ' It's such an important process, such an important election,' she said.

Wynne, who is looking to become Ontario's first elected female premier and to extend her party's 10½ years of rule, had a relatively low-key day with no campaign events.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudakmade one final pitch for voter support at Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, standing in front of a plane to say he would help create jobs in Ontario so young people don't have to fly to Alberta for work. He said he was a ' hundred per cent proud of the campaign we've run.'​

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath had the busiest day, starting at 8:30 a.m. in Toronto's Kensington Market, where she rallied volunteers, before heading to Hamilton to greet voters in the street.

'I don't want to predict at all what we're going to end up with at the end of the day,' she said.

'All I felt is growing momentum and felt it right up until today when I got out of the car and people were shaking my hand in downtown Hamilton. So we'll see what the people decide and we'll do our best to deliver for them.' ​Nightmare for pollsters

The election was originally tipped as a tight two-way race between the Liberals and PCs, but polls in recent days have been all over the map, suggesting it could be anything from a three-way battle with the NDP or a decisive victory for either Wynne or Hudak.

The campaign was triggered when NDP Leader Andrea Horwath refused to support the minority Liberals' budget. The snap election will cost the province about $90 million.

The province's economic recovery, job creation and the elimination of the $12.5-billion deficit dominated the 40-day campaign, which in the final stages was marred by nasty personal attacks and accusations of voter manipulation.

There are questions about voter turnout in this election. It has fallen steadily in recent elections, dipping to an all-time low of 48.2 per cent in 2011.

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