Looks like everything went fine:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – (KRT) – Saudi men went to the polls Thursday for the first nationwide election in the Arab world’s most conservative monarchy, though the royal family barred women from the experiment.

The election passed in peace, despite fears that rebels might seek to disrupt the vote and embarrass the government on the day that the world was watching. At war with a homegrown insurgency, the ruling House of Saud is betting that a flicker of democracy – limited to local elections – might win support for the regime and ease public frustration in a country where street protests and political parties are banned.

Voting is a novel experience for all but the oldest men in the 73-year-old Saudi state – some of whom recall sporadic local races in the 1960s – and voters converged on polling centers across the city bearing scraps of paper reminding them of their preferred candidates. They filed in modest numbers into school gymnasiums and city halls, checking off paper ballots for seven local offices and stuffing them into plastic ballot boxes.

“I want them to have clean hands and better ideas,” said Agil al-Agil, 48, a businessman voting in the conservative, working-class al-Shifaa district of southern Riyadh. “We don’t want someone who is coming (to the race) just for himself.”

The vote ended a two-week campaign that saw millions of dollars spent on Bedouin-tent banquets, roadside advertisements and cell phone text messages. The election may not have matched the raw emotion surrounding Iraq’s landmark election last week, but the event nonetheless marked a rare flash of democracy in the autocratic Middle East. It stirred pride among wealthy, well-educated Saudis whose loyalty to their oft-cited traditional values is increasingly at odds with their craving for a political system that keeps up with much of the world.

There are reports of turnout as high as 93%:

An average 82 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in Riyadh, according to Muhammad Al-Nagadi, deputy chairman of the Election Commission. The number was larger in the province of Riyadh where ???????93 percent voted, which is one of the highest turnouts in the world,??????? he added.

In the meantime, John reports that rumors of women being appointed to the Shoura Council. The fact that it is brought up and suggested, however, is rather new and exciting.