Japan is heading to the polls a month after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called a snap election in the face of the rising threat from North Korea.
Voting opened at 07:00 local time on Sunday (22:00 GMT Saturday).
Mr Abe called the election amid rebounding approval ratings after a record low over the summer and with the opposition largely in disarray.
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If, as predicted, Mr Abe is re-elected, he will be on track to become Japan’s longest serving post-war leader.
An early challenge from the popular governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, appears to be fizzling out, according to the BBC’s Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
One observer described voting for Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party as TINA – there is no alternative.
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