Election 2015 Date & Polls Watch: What You Absolutely Have To Know About #GE2015

As one of the most hotly contested elections ever, each and every party is fighting for your vote. Here’s what you absolutely must know in the lead-up to the biggest political event of the past five years.

When is the election?
In line with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the date of the next general election has been set for Thursday, 7 May 2015.

When is the deadline for registering?
The deadline to register to vote in the general election is 20 April 2015. If you haven’t done so already, you can do it online here.

What if I'm not around on 7 May?
If you know that you won’t be able to get to a polling station on election day, you can apply to vote by post or by proxy.

Voting by post is an easy and convenient way of voting if you're otherwise occupied. This page tells you how it works.

Similarly, voting by proxy means you can appoint someone you trust to vote on your behalf. To do so you have to provide a reason – for example, you are out of the country, have a physical condition that prevents you from getting to the polls or you have to work.

The deadline for applying to vote by proxy is normally 5pm, 6 working days before an election – so you should really be done by the end of April. Find out more here.

Voting in person: how it works

On election day, go to your local polling station. You'll find out where yours is on your local council’s website. Polling stations are open between 7am and 10pm.  

When you arrive it’s as simple as giving your details to polling staff, collecting a ballot paper and making your mark.

Who are my local candidates?
According to the electoral commission, for most elections there is no official source of information on each and every candidate running in any constituency, but you can find a list of candidates on your local election wesbiste and from there visit the candidate’s or party's website. If you're feeling adventurous, you could write to the party or candidate and ask your questions.

To find out who is running, go to the ‘your local area’ box of the About My Vote website, where you can enter your post code for all the information on your local election.

In Northern Ireland, a list of nominated candidates is available on the Electoral Office website.

So who is going to win?
The most likely conclusion from the outset is that nobody is going to win – at least not with a majority.
It looks as if this will be one of the most closely contested general elections in decades, with some polls indicating that Labour and the Conservatives will end up with the exact same number of seats. 

How is polling data gathered?
Polls are used to collect public opinion and gauge who will be voting for which parties. The main data comes from pollsters YouGov, Populus, Opinium, ComRes, Survation, Ipsos MORI, ICM, and TNS-BMRB.

And what are the polls saying?

According to the Press Association’s poll of polls, Labour has maintained a slight lead over the Conservatives.

With 23 days until the election, Labour is on 32.2%, putting them 0.9 points ahead of the Conservatives on 33.3%.

UKIP are in third place on 13.4%, a drop of 1.5% in the past five days.

Fourth is the Liberal Democrats on 8.2% and the Greens are fifth with 5.1%.

What does this mean in terms of seats?
May2015.com has converted the latest polling results into what these results would look like in terms of seats.

There are 650 seats in parliament, therefore a party needs 326 votes to win a majority. As shown in the table below, polls are predicting that even the major parties will have considerably fewer seats than is necessary to form a government.

What happens if there's another hung parliament?
If, like in 2010, the election results in a hung parliament, the previous government will be likely to remain in place while negotiations take place between the parties to either build a coalition or a looser alliance of parties.

It is, generally speaking, the party with the largest number of seats who make the first attempt to form a stable government.

The alternative to this is an attempt at a minority Government.

What's a minority Government?
To form a Government without a majority, a party must be able to command a majority in the House of Commons through "votes of confidence" and "supply motions" (which authorise the government to spend money).

A minority government is when the governing party has the most amount of seats but still less than half the total. It is a risky option because the government can be brought to deadlock if motions of confidence or supply are voted against.

How can I stay up to date with everything that's happening?
Yahoo is running a live blog right up until the final results are announced. You can find all the latest commentary, polls and funny moments by following us here.