Well, here are some sweet somethings to whisper in the ear of the one you hold close tonight:

Some 15,676,659 Australians are enrolled to vote this election. That's up on 14,712,799 in 2013.

Although 816,000 eligible Australians are thought to be not enrolled, this is an improvement on an estimated 1.22 million in 2013.

Of that 816,000, about 254,432 are believed to be 18- to 24-years-olds. Not great, but again, better than 2013, when that latter figure was an estimated 400,000.

This election, 57 parties are registered (it was 54 in 2013) and 33 of them registered a logo.

Candidate numbers are down this year (1625: it was 1717 in 2013), as are numbers of Hours of Representative candidates (994, down from 1188 in 2013), but Senate candidates are up: 631, from 529 in 2013.

And the ratio of men and women is shifting, too: 540 female candidates this year (470 in 2013) and 1084 male candidates (1247 male candidates in 2013).

Within half an hour, more than 7000 polling booths will begin to close across the nation (at 6pm), having conducted aspects of the election in 27 languages.

Woooo! Elections: they know how to party.

Thanks to the Australia Electoral Commission (AEC) for these insights. We'll hear more from them as the evening progresses.