Scotland voters get their say on U.K.'s fate

EDINBURGH -- It's a small, simple, six-word question, but how it's answered will have enormous consequences; should Scotland be an independent country?

That, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips, is what the ballot facing thousands of Scots on Thursday asks, and the answer as they headed to the polls was too close to call.

The importance of the vote to Scotland, and all of Britain, is hard overstate. Scots were lined up at dawn, before the polls even opened.

There are more than 4 million registered voters in the country, and well over 80 percent of them were expected to turn out.

Alex Salmond has been leading the campaign for the "Yes" vote, and he's said the message for Scotland is clear, "let's do it now."

Salmond's relentless campaigning has brought his pro-independence movement from well behind in the opinion polls into a virtual tie with those wanting to stay in the United Kingdom.

"This is the country that invented popular sovereignty, something which the United States of America, of course, took forward," he told Phillips. "So that's up to the Scottish people, but it's going to be a yes vote!"

Not if Gordon Brown can help it, however. Brown, a former British Prime Minister, is Scottish to the core.

He has ridden to the rescue of the faltering "No" campaign -- injecting passion into what had been a dry, economic argument.

"What we have built together by sacrificing and sharing, let no narrow nationalism split asunder ever," he told a cheering audience in his native land.

For two long years those have been the arguments; each side convinced it's on the right side of history.

It has divided Scotland. Drinkers in one Edinburgh pub were sharing space, but clearly didn't see eye-to-eye over their pints.

"I'd like us to take the chance to govern ourselves, to go our own way," one man told Phillips.

"I do get that," said a woman sat nearby with her child, "but jumping into the abyss is not worth it."

Even as they headed into the polling booths Thursday to mark their ballots, many still weren't sure what they were about to do.

One of the problems with predicting the results of the referendum, explains Phillips, is there's never been a vote like this before, and many people who have never voted -- including 16 and 17-year-olds -- have registered.

They'll be counting ballots all night in Scotland, and if it's as close as it seems, they may have to count them again.