Millions of people would go to the polls today, Thursday to cast their votes in the UK General Elections.
With the campaigning over, British people would go to the polls on Thursday to cast their ballot in the UK General Elections 2015.
Polling stations will be open until 10 PM local time, and the first results would be expected around midnight.
Today, Thursday, 50 million voters will decide the fate of politicians around the country at around 50,000 polling stations. Five years ago 7 million people had postal vote, but for most of the people a trip to the polling station would be preferred to vote in person.
In addition to who is going to occupy the 10 Downing Street, more than 9,000 council seats across 279 English local authorities are being contested. And 6 mayors are also being elected. Another word, every voter in England outside London would get two ballot papers, when they go to the polling station today. Soon after the polls close at 10pm tonight, the first results would trickle in.
In todays’ election 650 members of parliament would be elected to a legislature which is called the ’Mother of all Parliaments.’
In this election some 45 million people from across the UK have registered to vote. Back in year 2010, the turnout was about %65 of those who had registered, meaning 30 million, out of 45 million registered from the beginning. The expectation this year is about the same percentage of participation. Across the UK, the local electoral authorities decide how many polling stations there would be in a particular region, but the expectation is about 50,000 polling stations operating today in churches, community centers and village halls.
On the left side of the ballot paper, the names of the candidates are written in Alphabetical order, and on the right side of ballot paper are boxes which the voter would have to put only cross in it.
This time, depending on what region the voter is in, would be voting both on General and Local elections.
Although there is no law to leave behind your cellphones, but the electoral committee would discourage the voters to carry their cellphones with them, apparently to keep the confidentiality and the secrecy of the ballot. They also discourage people to wear T-shirts with a specific party signature or picture.
But when all done, at 10pm, every constituency would rush to count the ballots and turn the results in. It also is seen as a contest to be the first constituency to count all the votes and be the first to return the results. Last time one constituency in the northeast of England counted all the ballets in just 52 minutes. But normally the overall picture of who is going to win would be known around 5 in the morning the next day. There are 650 constituencies around the UK. The magic number for the winner party is 326. This is the magic line that the party has to get to win the absolute majority in the House of Commons.
