Counting was underway Friday in a British by-election triggered when a senior opposition lawmaker quit in protest at government plans to increase the period police can hold terror suspects without charging them.
Veteran Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis unexpectedly stepped down last month after Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government narrowly won a vote in parliament on increasing the limit from 28 to 42 days.
The results are expected early Friday morning, after voting closed at 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Thursday evening.
Davis, who stood twice in unsuccessful bids to become the Conservative Party leader, says he wants to stand up to the government's "assault on British liberty".
He claims that detaining suspects for 42 days without charge is "draconian" and accuses Brown's administration of overseeing "the growth of a surveillance society".
Brown has described his resignation as "a stunt". Davis is backed by figures such as popstar turned Africa campaigner Sir Bob Geldof, and even former Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn.
Neither Brown's governing Labour Party nor Britain's third party, the Liberal Democrats, have put up a candidate, although 25 other candidates, including one from the Church of the Militant Elvis Party and a former Miss Great Britain, are standing.
Davis, who had a 5,000 majority at the last general election in 2005, is likely to be easily re-elected to his rural Haltemprice and Howden constituency in northern England.
But he is not expected to retake his job on the Conservative front bench because another lawmaker, Dominic Grieve, has been appointed to his old job.
