THE North of Ireland's group of 18 MPs dispatched to Westminster are preparing to play a possible 'king maker' role in forming the next parliament.
As the battle between David Cameron and Ed Miliband's parties enters its final hours, both Conservative and Labour leaders have been making overtures to the North's party leaders over the last few weeks in the expected event of a hung parliament.
It is widely expected from a range of recent opinion polls that neither Labour nor Conservative parties will obtain the required magical 326 MPs to form a majority government from the total of 650 parliamentarians.
In this case, both the wooing and swaying of minority parties across Britain and North of Ireland could critically produce the next Prime Minister.
The North's nationalist and unionist groupings at Westminster have traditionally lined up behind both main parties separately as sister parties.
They are expected to continue this trend after today's vote.
The province's key MP numbers which could tilt power in the House of Commons are expected to come out as DUP nine and SDLP three.
This tally will be added to the vital electoral arithmetic with Scottish nationalists and Ukip in both Cameron and Miliband's quest for the winning path into Number 10 Downing Street.
Sinn Féin's five abstentionist MPs who do not participate in Commons' votes will not factor into this balancing of power.
Repeated controversies from leading DUP figures including Health Minister Jim Wells' comments on gay couples have drawn criticism from senior government figures in London.
Such is the likelihood of the North's parties influencing the next forming of government that outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Conservative party hierarchy have sought to reassure voters that controversial and fundamentalist DUP policies will not shape their platform in the next parliament.
Three constituencies in the North of Ireland will be watched carefully, and could themselves dramatically change hands today.
Fermanagh & South Tyrone:
Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew has held the seat since 2001, in this knife-edge constituency.
It made world headlines when voters famously elected IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands here in 1981.
At the last general election, the Sinn Féin MP had the lowest majority at Westminster with a tiny four vote-margin over the united unionist candidate.
This time, former UUP leader Tom Elliott will attempt to unseat the republican, backed by Peter Robinson's DUP who have withdrawn from the race.
Prediction: Too close to call.
East Belfast:
The middle ground Alliance Party were the talk of the 2010 election by unseating and humiliating DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson in the seat he had held since the 1970s.
Naomi Long remains Alliance's only MP in its history and a pact between the Ulster Unionists and DUP gives the First Minister's party the likelihood of snatching the seat back.
DUP namesake Gavin Robinson has stressed on the doorsteps the Alliance Party's involvement in the controversy of restricting the flying of the Union Jack across the North's public buildings as Naomi Long's Achilles' heel.
Prediction: A DUP and Robinson regain.
South Belfast:
SDLP party leader and local GP Alasdair McDonnell made history here in 2005 by being the first nationalist elected for this affluent constituency.
This ended his record 35 years of runner up status in Westminster elections.
But Sinn Féin's entry onto the ballot paper this time with former Belfast Lord Mayor Mairtín O'Muilleoir may cost the SDLP man his coveted MP seat to a unionist candidate.
And with it, the party leadership itself.
Prediction: Too close to call.
