The SNP will form the next Holyrood government having won 64 seats - just one short of an overall majority
Party leader and first minister Nicola Sturgeon says she wants to see the country through the pandemic and then "give people in Scotland the right to choose their future"
With all results declared, the Scottish Conservatives have secured 31 seats (no change); Scottish Labour 22 (-2); Scottish Greens 8 (+2) and Scottish Lib Dems 4 (-1)
Smaller parties, including former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond's Alba and George Galloway's All for Unity, won nothing
The turnout of 66% is the highest since the parliament was established in 1999
The SNP's Willie Coffey holds Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley with 52.7% of the vote.
His majority of 11,681, ahead of Labour in second, was up on the last election.
There has been a 1.9% swing from the SNP to Labour.
The SNP majority has fallen from 32.6% to 28.8%.
Turnout is up more than 6% to 61.4%.
The local power cut in Dumfries has ended as reporter Connor Gillies revealed live on air.
Counting staff lost almost an hour as temporary lighting was hastily sought but power has now been restored at leisure centre DGOne.
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Steven Godden
BBC Scotland at the Glenrothes count
We were told the earliest we would get a declaration would be 5pm or 6pm, but I get a feeling things are coming to a conclusion sooner than that, so we may have something soon from the North-East Fife seat.
Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
Banffshire and Buchan Coast is a worrying result for the SNP in that the party's vote is well down, while the Conservative vote is up by as much as 11 points.
However, this is the most pro-Leave part of Scotland (55% Leave in 2016) and the pattern may not prove to be typical of Scotland as a whole.
It was, after all, in the north east where the SNP faced its most significant losses to the Conservatives in the 2017 general election, a pattern that subsequent research has demonstrated was due to the behaviour of Leave voters.
The SNP's Karen Adam has won Banffshire and Buchan Coast, with 45.2% of the vote.
But the Scottish Conservatives, in second place, reduced the SNP's majority by almost 6,000 to just 772.
That means the SNP majority has been slashed from 23% to 2.3%.
There has been a huge swing of 10.3% from the SNP to the Tories.
The turnout is up to 56.1%.
Our reporter at the count in Ayr, David McDaid, is hearing optimistic noises from the SNP that they may have taken the seat from the Conservatives, who had a majority of just 750 in 2016.
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Better news perhaps for Douglas Ross's party in Eastwood, where the Conservatives believe former leader Jackson Carlaw is going to hold on to the seat he won with a majority of 1,611 five years ago.
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Both results are expected to be declared today.
Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
It already seems clear that the SNP will emerge as the largest party in the next Holyrood parliament.
However, so far they have not been putting in the kind of performances needed for them to secure an overall majority, although many of the constituencies declared so far are not typical of Scotland as a whole.
That said, there are signs that anti-SNP tactical voting may have appeared on the constituency ballot and this may make a difference in the marginal held unionist seats that the SNP are hoping to gain.
Note that across the six constituencies that have declared so far, no party's vote is up or down by more than one percentage point.
It may well be that the outcome of the constituencies will look rather similar to the outcome in 2016, although the SNP need to do somewhat better than that if they are going to win an overall majority.
John Swinney, who comfortably won Perthshire North with an increased majority for the SNP, says: "We have held on with a decisive margin in the election today."
The deputy first minister said: "I am absolutely over the moon to be re-elected for the sixth time to the Scottish Parliament and, as of today, to become the longest serving member of the Scottish Parliament with continuous service."
Mr Swinney takes that accolade from his former cabinet colleague Roseanna Cunningham, who steps down in Perthshire South.
He says it is also an "enormous pleasure" to see the prospects of a return of an SNP government.
The SNP's Joe FitzPatrick has held Dundee City with 57.8% of the vote.
Labour were a distant second.
Turnout was up to 56.7% - as is the majority for the SNP, up from 31.8% to 40.2%. In terms of votes, the majority for Joe FitzPatrick is up to 12,919.
There has been a swing of 4.2% from Labour to the SNP.
Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie is buoyant from the Glasgow count after "arriving on his bike with a smile on his face", according to presenter Rebecca Curran.
He says he is hopeful and adds that his party ran the most active campaign they have ever run.
He says the turnout figures are something to celebrate and "early indications are positive" at this early stage.
On talk of a coalition with the SNP, he says the Greens can make an impact and that "a minority government is an environment in which all political parties can make an impact if they can be bothered putting forward positive constructive ideas instead of knocking down everyone else's ideas".
He says the Greens will continue to do that and it is for the SNP to decide if they want to have other conversations.
Philip Sim
BBC Scotland political correspondent
The early results have come chiefly in safe seats, and it is hard to read much of a trend in terms of what is happening across Scotland from them.
The SNP vote share has gone down in the seats they have held, although it was up in Orkney, where they closed the gap somewhat on the still-dominant Lib Dems.
In terms of who the chief challenger to the SNP is on their own turf, again the picture is muddy.
Labour will be encouraged by the result in Clydebank and Milgavie, where there was a decent swing to them from the SNP – while the Conservatives lost vote share.
But the picture in Aberdeen Donside was the opposite, with the swing going from the SNP to the Conservatives, and Labour losing vote share back in third place.
And just to complete the set, in Na h-Eileanan an Iar the shares of all the opposition parties went up, although the SNP majority was barely dented.
Short of a seat changing hands, that’s about every type of swing we could have seen. The morning’s mantra still holds for now – it’s too soon to get a really clear picture of what is happening.
BBC Scotland's Connor Gillies reports that the count in Dumfries has been plunged into darkness following a power cut.
Leisure centre DGOne is hosting the counts for the Dumfriesshire, and the Galloway and West Galloway constituencies, and the south of Scotland regional list.
The returning officer has called a halt to counting but says there is a back-up generator.
The SNP's John Swinney wins Perthshire North with 48.6% of the vote.
Murdo Fraser of the Scottish Conservatives was second, 4,000 votes behind.
The turnout was up to 69.9%, with the majority for the SNP going up to 10.1% at 4,053 votes.
There was a small swing of 0.1% from the SNP to the Tories.
Willie Rennie says every politician is a bit nervous when the future of their career is in the hands of a small number of people counting the votes.
The Scottish Lib Dem leader says he is delighted by the result in Orkney, where Liam McArthur held his seat.
Mr Rennie hopes that success is replicated across Scotland.
He declines to speculate on his future as leader of the Scottish Lib Dems at this stage.
Mr Rennie argues people have sent a pretty clear message that they don't want indyref2.
Here's a round-up of the first results of the 2021 Holyrood election:
Aileen Clarke
At the Emirates Arena, Glasgow
Image source, bbcA Liberal Party member gives a fascist salute as he is escorted from the building
Quite an unpleasant scene, with Humza Yousaf who was the justice minister in the last administration, being accosted by two members of one of the smaller parties, the Liberal Party.
One of them, Derek Jackson, who is candidate in the southside constituency was asking about the hate crime legislation and then that turned to them asking about the treatment of women and children in Pakistan.
At that stage Humza tells me he tried to draw it to a close, it was getting rather heated. He was pleased to say that other members of other parties stood in to make it clear that was not a conversation anybody was willing to continue.
The two members of the Liberal Party started to walk away but as they did so, were seen to be giving fascist salutes and military salutes as they headed towards the exit.
I know that the police spoke to Mr Jackson. It's not clear if they were asked to leave the building or they just left.
It comes just hours after Nicola Sturgeon was confronted by far-right independent candidate Jayda Fransen outside a polling station in Glasgow Southside.
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Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
The first three declarations in Scotland show a six point increase in turnout. Evidently, the constitutional debate has engaged voters in Scotland, despite a campaign that has been limited by the pandemic.
Meanwhile Clydebank and Milngavie is the first central belt constituency to declare, albeit a safe SNP one.
The SNP will be worried about the fact that Labour's vote is up by as much as 10 points while their own is down by two.
There is as much as a seven-point drop in the Conservative vote which may be a sign of tactical voting in favour of the second place Labour candidate.
The SNP's Marie McNair wins Clydebank and Milngavie, which was held by the party's Gil Paterson for 10 years before retiring at the end of the last parliament.
Labour, who also came second in 2016, were up 9.7% but were still 5,000 votes behind the SNP.
The majority for the SNP was down from 25.7% to 14%, with a majority of 5,274.
There was an SNP to Labour swing of 5.8%.
The turnout was up to 68% but down in terms of the number of votes to 37,660.
Alasdair Allan holds the Western Isles for the SNP, with a majority of 3,441 over Labour in second.
The majority was down to 23.7%, from 26.5% last election.
There was a swing of 1.4 from the SNP to Labour.
The turnout of was up to 14,507 votes or 66.0%.
Professor Sir John Curtice
Polling expert
Neither the Orkney nor the Aberdeen Donside result are necessarily a good guide to what will happen in Scotland in general. Orkney is unusual in being a Liberal Democrat stronghold of longstanding.
The SNP will be pleased with the five point increase in their vote, but their principal unionist opponents, the Conservative and Labour held their share too.
Aberdeen Donside is a constituency with a relatively high Leave vote, which is just the kind of territory where one would expect the Conservatives to do relatively well.
Therefore, the six-point swing from the SNP to the Conservatives may prove atypical. In addition, the former MSP in this constituency, Mark McDonald, was thrown out of the SNP as a result of alleged indiscretions.