Scotland Referendum 2014 Polls & Results: Salmond Resigns After Scotland Votes to Stay with UK

In what was easily one of the biggest voting decisions in Scotland history, it was decided that the country would remain a part of the United Kingdom. The referendum was voted on earlier Friday morning in Scotland and confirmed that they would remain with the likes of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The decision was reached by a 55% to 45% majority vote to reject the possibility of Scotland becoming its own independent nation and siding with the pro-United Kingdom "Better Together" campaign.

It did not take long for the government officials to make their comments on the decision. Alex Salmond, Scottish first minister and leader of the pro-independence and Scottish National Party-backed "Yes Scotland," campaign, announced his resignation from both positions come November.

Salmond believes that the campaign was successful despite not winning the decision. He holds that now is the time to hold the UK higher-ups to the promises that they made of shifting more power of self-governance to Scotland.

Per CNN, Salmond released a statement that said, "We now have the opportunity to hold Westminster's feet to the fire on the 'vow' that they have made to devolve further meaningful power to Scotland. This places Scotland in a very strong position.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron made a televised statement shortly after the results were determined. In it he maintained his feelings that this was the best decision for both entities, but endeavored that this was also an opportunity to renew the way that citizens of the UK were governed and to, "change it for the better," for those that want to see improvement in countries such as Scotland.

More people in Scotland than ever before registered to vote in this poll with a final electorate of over 4.2 million. This number was the largest in the democratic world for any such vote.

For the first time in history, voting was also extended to 16- and 17-year-olds resulting in an additional 100,000-plus citizens registering to vote for the electorate.

The majority of opinion had been difficult to determine until the final weeks of the campaign.  For several weeks the polls indicated that the "No" vote was dominant until the end of August before the "Yes" campaign began to garner significant momentum, with some analysts even placing them ahead.  In the final days of the campaign, the negative votes had a small, consistent lead. There were no exit polls.