ARMIES of thousands have been deployed throughout Scotland to ensure another round of democracy in action ran as smoothly as possible.

Around 24 hours elapsed from the opening of thousands of polling stations across the country to the declaration of the results.

In Glasgow, home to seven constituencies, over 1,100 staff were required to oversee voting in 490 polling stations in 200 separate buildings.

Throughout the night around 700 staff waded through piles of ballots as soon as they began arriving at the Emirates Arena shortly after 10pm.

The city council had faced a last minute major hiccup after dozens of school janitors refused to work beyond their core hours in a row over bonus payments.

Janitors are usually the designated fire warden required to be on the premises when voting is taking place, also providing security so no-one intrudes into other areas of the school.

Earlier this week the authority ferried around 70 volunteers from other parts of the council to the headquarters of its arms-length firm Cordia where they were drilled in fire warden requirements.

Across the M8 in Edinburgh, which counts for around 8.7 per cent of Scotland's electorate, second most behind Glasgow, staff were deployed across 145 polling places housing 360 polling stations, each with one ballot box.

Just short of 800 polling staff were brought in to ensure voting ran smoothly in Edinburgh, while 515 count workers were on hand to get the candidate tallies right.

According to the council, count staff went through around 2,800 boiled sweets on the night, while the equipment used across polling places yesterday included 150 black bin bags, 84 sets of pliers, two miles of string, 3,600 pencils and 500 fingerettes.

The city also hosted one mobile polling place, a library parked at Forrester Park Avenue.