More than 142 million people will vote in Brazil’s presidential and legislative elections today.
Voters are electing a president, 27 state governors, 513 members of congress and 1,069 regional lawmakers, as well as a third of the senate.
The results are expected at around 2am Irish time.
The campaign has been one of the most competitive since the country returned to democracy in 1985.
Brazil's first woman president, Dilma Rousseff, came in at 46% in a recent opinion poll, meaning she is in 4% of getting a 50% majority vote today.
In the run up to elections one of the leading candidates, Eduardo Campos, died in a plane crash in the city of Santos on 13 August.
Mr Campos, who was running third in the polls was killed when the plane crashed into a gym and two homes in the city.
Mr Campos was replaced by environmentalist Marina Silva who came in at 25% in a recent opinion poll.
Social democrat Aecio Neves came in at 27%.
If none of the three main candidates obtain a clear majority vote today there will be a second round of voting on 26 October.
The number of women running in Brazil's general elections has risen from about one in four in 2010 to nearly one in three in today’s vote.
Of the 26,000 candidates standing for office in the national and regional races, about 8,000 are women- 31.7%, up from 23% four years ago, electoral officials said yesterday.
Since 2009, Brazilian law has required parties to have at least 30% women members.
But although women make up 52% of the country's 142.8 million voters, the proportion of women in Congress is just 15%.
