Britain Votes! Polling Stations Open as Voters Choose Next Westminster Parliament

Votes are now being cast to select the members of the next House of Commons, the British legislating chamber which will determine the next government and next Prime Minister.

Polling stations opened at 0700 (0200 EST) this morning and will close at 2200 (1700 EST) Thursday evening. The election was called by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, on May 22nd. The sudden announcement and short campaign confounded expectations, with watchers broadly believing Sunak would push the date back as far as possible, which could have gone as late as January 2025.

Pollster Ipsos has interviewers at stations across the country asking members of the public to voluntarily reveal how they voted as they leave. Based on this data, the pollster is able to produce a relatively clear picture of how the country has voted that is published immediately after polls close.

This has been accurate in the past, and has been produced for every General Election since 1997. But while it gives a picture of the overall national swing, the seat-specific answers and knowing which parties have taken where will only emerge through the early hours of Friday morning as counts are announced.

British and Irish citizens resident in the United Kingdom or registered while living abroad who are aged over 18 are eligible to vote, but in many cases immigrants are also to vote even if they don’t have citizenship if they originated from the Commonwealth of former British Empire states.

Since last year, it has been the law that voters must show legal identification in order to vote in person. For many, this may be the first election they’ve voted in where identification to reduce the risk of voter fraud is required. The Electoral Commission, the government body which regulates elections, says there are 22 acceptable forms of identity running the full gamut from a passport, driving licence, retirees’ bus pass, and military identity card. For those with none of those things, there is also a free voter ID card, but these would need to have been applied for in advance.

Given the nature of the secret ballot, it is even possible to vote anonymously under the new voter ID system. Concerned citizens jealous of their privacy have the right to apply for a Anonymous Elector’s Document, which features only a photograph of the bearer and an anonymised string of numbers and letters, identifying them as being eligible to receive a ballot paper from the polling station.

Under United Kingdom law, reporting on the election is severely restricted while the polling places are open. Broadcasters can’t discuss the anticipated outcome or publish polling, as the regulator states: “Discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens… Broadcasters may not publish the results of any opinion poll on polling day itself”. The punishment for breaking these rules can include include imprisonment for news editors.

When these rules were last changed, it was considered whether it would be appropriate to ban publishing opinion polling not just on election day itself, but in the days leading up to the vote itself. This, it was said, would give voters more time to make up their own minds, rather than simply being told how other people would vote constantly. This proposal was eventually dropped.

Candidates and party leaders can make speeches to supporters today, and indeed the country will be alive with political activists ‘getting out the vote’. But these events cannot be broadcast.

The candidates are not invisible, however. The party leaders arriving at their local polling places to vote have traditionally done so without wearing a coloured party rosette, and images of this happening are generally widely broadcast.