The longest and most expensive in modern Canadian history will be decided tonight when the last of the ballots are counted, concluding under threat of frost what began in the sweltering heat of an August long weekend.

All that remains for exhausted party workers is to get out the vote in what appears to be an epic battle fought over gut-level values as much as election platforms.

All parties are working hard today to get their identified voters to the polls.

There’s not anything particularly complex about getting out the vote on “e-day,” as the campaign workers call it. The parties make hundreds of calls, checking on whether people have voted or need a ride to a polling station. They knock on doors and put pamphlets on door knobs reminding supporters that it is voting day and their vote could make the difference.

“The methodology has changed, more emails, text and calls,” said NDP Spadina-Fort York candidate Olivia Chow. “It’s slightly more advanced in the technology, but it’s the same principle: getting people out, talking to the neighbours, being at the lobby, reminding at the streetcar stops.”

Election observers will be watching closely as another new wrinkle unfolds this evening. For the first time ever, it is legal to transmit election results across time zones into areas of the country where polls have not yet closed. This ends an old blackout policy that was becoming all but impossible to police in the era of social media.

Initial results from the country’s two most-populous provinces are expected to begin rolling in after 9:30 p.m. Eastern time.

When Parliament was dissolved for the election on Aug. 2, the Conservatives held 159 seats in the 308-seat House of Commons, the NDP had 95 and the Liberals 36, with another 18 seats either vacant, held by Independents or shared between the Green party (two seats) and the Bloc Quebecois and a splinter group.

Due to population growth, 30 new seats have been added this election, including 15 in Ontario, six each for Alberta and British Columbia and three more for Quebec.

But the new ridings mean most old riding boundaries also had to be redrawn, literally reconfiguring the electoral map and making seat projections all the more difficult to predict. Combine that with some spectacular polling embarrassments in recent provincial elections and today’s outcome remains very much up in the air.

“There’s a whole pile of new (riding) configurations, 30 new seats,” pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research said as the campaign wound down.

“There’s some complex vote-splitting that we don’t know how it will work in those new ridings. We certainly don’t know who’s going to turn out to vote. That’s always critical.”

Early in the day, enthusiastic voters from across the country took selfies at polling stations Monday, tweeting them with the hashtag #IVoted, only for Elections Canada to warn that the practice is forbidden.

“Want to take a voting selfie? Great! Take it outside the polling place,” Elections Canada tweeted at the conclusion of the longest and most expensive election campaign in modern Canadian history.

Voters aren’t permitted to take photos, make audio or video recordings or jeopardize the secrecy of other voters’ votes, Elections Canada noted.

(There is, of course, an exception for the leaders of the major parties: both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau were photographed in polling stations casting their ballots this morning.)

It’s also not okay to show a photo of your own marked ballot to anyone, Elections Canada guidelines state.

“If people were allowed to show how they voted, it could lead to coercion (being forced to vote a certain way) or vote-buying,” guidelines tweeted by Elections Canada stipulate.

Interest in the election is intense online, and not just on social media. Around the time when the polls opened at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, a surge of traffic knocked the Elections Canada website offline for about 15 minutes.

Many questions will be answered by 9:30 p.m. Eastern, when the polls will be closed everywhere but in the Pacific time zone, where they close at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Can Stephen Harper become the first prime minister since Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1908 to win four consecutive mandates?

And, if he doesn’t win another majority — meaning 170 seats in the newly expanded House of Commons — will he survive as Conservative party leader?

Can NDP Leader Tom Mulcair miraculously lift New Democrats to their first national government in Canada’s history?

Can the party maintain its hard-won 2011 grip on its status as official Opposition?

Can the Liberals under Trudeau become the first third-place party in federal history to leap straight into government in a single election?

Is Canada ready for another Trudeau as prime minister?

In an attempt to avoid fraud, Elections Canada tweeted this clarification: “Elections Canada does not phone, text or email voters, unless a voter specifically asks us to do so.”

Candidates tweeted out when polls opened in the Eastern, Central, Mountain, Atlantic and Newfoundland time zones, with directions on where to vote.

Harper and his wife Laureen appeared in good spirits as they arrived in the new riding of Calgary Heritage to cast their ballots.

“It’s a nice blue sky,” Harper told reporters. “That’s how I am feeling.”

Trudeau posed for photographers at a polling station in his home riding in Montreal as he voted, accompanied by his wife and children.

“What a weekend! Halifax to Vancouver — now back to Montreal,” Trudeau tweeted. “Thank you for your support. Get out and vote! It’s time for #RealChange.”

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Mulcair spent Monday morning in Montreal checking out one of his party’s zone houses, which serve as regional command posts for volunteers who help mobilize the vote.

“Thank you for everything you are doing,” he told campaign workers. “We know we have a three-way race across Canada and now is the crucial day, today, the day of the vote.”

Some polling stations in the hotly contested riding of Winnipeg Centre opened up to an hour late Monday because “a bunch” of Elections Canada workers cancelled at the last minute.

Spokeswoman Marie-France Kenny wouldn’t say exactly how many people didn’t show up as promised, but she added it was more than a dozen.

“A dozen people we’re prepared for,” said Kenny, who added that each polling station has a list of people on standby in case some workers aren’t able to make it.

Lineups formed outside some polling stations as workers were brought in from other electoral districts. Kenny said some polls could stay open past the official closing time of 8:30 p.m. depending on demand.

NDP incumbent Pat Martin was in a battle with Liberal challenger Robert-Falcon Ouellette for the seat.

Lorraine Sigurdson, Martin’s campaign manager, said Elections Canada was having trouble recruiting staff in the riding.

“It is always a discouragement to voters when they arrive to vote and cannot vote in a timely fashion,” she said. “There has to be some problem-solving done before the next election to ensure this does not happen again.”

Ouellette’s spokesman, Dougald Lamont, said the delays were caused because Elections Canada wanted the polls staffed by people from the riding of Winnipeg Centre before allowing people who live in other ridings to work there.

“I understand that Elections Canada was having some issues with recruitment and was even advertising for spares last week,” he said. “It is a staffing issue related to some rules that should certainly be changed in future elections.”

The delays shouldn’t discourage anyone from voting in the riding, he added.

“Everyone should get out and vote.”

Overall though, there appeared to be only sporadic voting glitches across the country.

Assembly of First Nations national chief Perry Bellegarde, who, initially, said he wouldn’t vote in order to maintain his neutrality, then changed his mind, tweeted about his trip to the polls.

The Bloc’s Gilles Duceppe cast his ballot and said he was happy with the reaction he received from voters who welcomed him back after a hiatus from the party leadership. “There’s always a phrase that stands out in a campaign and this time it was, ‘Thank you for coming back’ from beginning to end.”

Green Leader Elizabeth May planned to vote in Sidney, B.C., before heading to Victoria to watch the results roll in with fellow candidates.

Elsewhere, Gillian Taronno wasn’t going to let giving birth to triplets stop her from voting.

She and her husband Sandy went Monday morning to a polling station in the riding of Winnipeg South Centre.

Gillian asked those in line inside Harrow United Church if they could go ahead to vote.

She told them it was because she had to have a C-section at 9 a.m. to deliver her three babies.

People in line replied “yes” in unison and motioned them to move ahead to the front of the line.

(Relatives say Taronno has given birth and she and the three baby girls are healthy and doing well. The names of the babies have yet to be announced.)

Some 3.6 million Canadians have already cast ballots during the four-day advance polling period on the Thanksgiving long weekend, an increase of 71 per cent over the 2011 election, when only three days of advance polls were held.

Whether that increased voter turnout carries into the main event is another question that will be answered today. Just 61.4 per cent of eligible electors cast a ballot in 2011, up marginally from the 58.8 per cent in 2008, the lowest ever in a federal election.

If no party wins a majority, the country may be headed for fraught negotiations to form a minority government. While some parties have collaborated, such as the Liberals and the NDP in the 1970s, historically there’s never been a formal coalition in Canada and that’s unlikely to change.

A Harper victory can’t be discounted, especially if the NDP is able to regain support lost to the Liberals during the campaign. Popular support doesn’t always translate into more seats, and the addition of 30 new districts in this campaign makes seat forecasting more difficult.

The NDP has helped keep minority Liberal governments in power in the past in exchange for the implementation of policies it favours. The Liberals and the NDP may find common ground again, given they both have said their main goal in this campaign is to get Harper out of office.

—with files from the Canadian Press, Bloomberg News and Kyle Edwards