UK General Election: Polling stations open

This article was originally published in English

Polling stations in 650 constituencies across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland opened at 7am local time on Thursday morning for the UK’s first general election since the country officially left the European Union.

Voting is expected to continue until 10pm local time, when an initial estimate of the results based on exit polls will be released.

The results will then come in overnight, with most constituencies expected to announce the winners in the early hours of the morning.

Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to vote in his constituency of Richmond and Northallerton in Yorkshire, while Labour leader Keir Starmer will vote in his London constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.

This is the first vote since the 2023 redistribution. The redistribution saw England gain ten seats, while Scotland and Wales lost two and eight seats respectively. The number of seats in Northern Ireland was unchanged.

This is also the first general election in which voters must carry photo ID to vote. In May, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was denied access to a polling station for local elections after forgetting the new rule.

Many people have already voted by mail, even though some voters did not receive their ballot in the mail the day before the election.

Scottish politicians were quick to denounce the delay. Many Scottish schools have already closed for the summer, meaning families who went on holiday abroad and were hoping to vote by post before they left were unable to do so.

How are UK general elections conducted?

There are 650 seats to be filled in the House of Commons, one representative from each constituency.

Citizens vote for the person who will represent their constituency in the House of Commons. Candidates run on their constituency list either independently or, more commonly, as representatives of political parties.

The UK uses an electoral system called first-past-the-postwhich means that the candidate who gets the most votes in his constituency becomes an MP. It also means that parties can get a high percentage of votes nationally, but not get seats if they don’t come out on top everywhere.

The party that wins the majority of seats in parliament, at least 326, usually forms the government.

When will we know the results?

An exit poll will be released by British television at 22:00 (local time). This poll gives an estimate, usually quite accurate, of the distribution of seats, based on a survey of voters at 133 polling stations across the country.

As constituencies confirm their results, it will become clearer overnight whether the exit poll was correct. The results are expected to be confirmed around 6:30 a.m. local time on Friday.