We are past midnight, so all campaigning is over. The polling stations open at 7:00 (and close at 22:00). So it’s time for the voting thread.

It’s trickier this year because of voter ID requirements but gov.uk have all the details. However, note this: “You can still use your ID even if it has expired.” So an out-of-date passport, for example, will work as long as the name is the same and the photo still looks like you. Don’t forget that there are other polling stations rules.

There have been problems in some areas with people getting their postal vote on time but if you haven’t got yours and you aren’t on your holidays, it’s not too late. Details on what to do.

Tactical voting can make a difference in some places and there are a number of sites to help with this. They’ll largely be similar but check a couple before committing:

If you want your vote to count you can try SwapMyVote.uk.

Other things you can do:

  • Offer lifts to people so they can get out and vote - contact your party of choice

If you have any other resources then throw them in below. If you have any questions then ask away and, hopefully, someone can rummage the answer up for you. edit: If I’ve cocked up, then let me know.

NB: we aren’t endorsing any links, so you will have to use your best judgement on who you trust with your details.

    • CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      I fired off the dirtiest vote today. I’m not a huge fan of Starmer but I hate the Tories much more, and they recently changed the rules so if you’ve been abroad for more than 15 years you’re allowed to vote again.

      So I sent a 100% tactical fuck-you vote from overseas via proxy, motivated by nothing more than wanting to join in kicking the shit out of the Tories while they’re already down.

      Greasy as hell but I regret nothing lol

  • GreyShuck@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    The tories have been incumbent for 116 years in my neck of the woods (the previous one was a whig). The surveys say that is likely to end this time. I am sooo looking forward to that.

  • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    13 seats for Reform feels like it would be more than a foot in the door for Faragism if the exit poll is accurate for them. I hope Labour will be able to provide effective counters to this.

    Of course it’s also possible that with suddenly gaining MPs in double digits, the inexperienced party might keep tripping over itself before it can trip anyone else.

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      Luckily Reform only got 5. That’s 5 too many, but better than 13. They’re the 7th largest party in the new Parliament (if you count Independents as a party, which is a stretch-- I regard them as the null party).

    • steeznson@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Chances of at least 2 of them being disqualified/resigning for saying something awful is like 100%. There will be by-elections in no time.

  • Monzcarro@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    Just voted for Labour. Need to get out the Tory MP who was sycophantic in her defence of Boris partying.

  • addie@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    Wife’s birthday tomorrow, and she wants rid of the Tories as a present. Fortunately, that’s what I was going to get her anyway.

    • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOP
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      3 days ago

      Best husband ever for organising this whole business. It becomes clear now that the Tory disarray is part of some massive years-long plan that would dwarf Palpatine’s Grand Plan.

      • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Yeah I was hoping they would fall under 100. The exit poll is just another poll though - it still could change yet. Maybe the projections won’t properly account for the effect of Reform and independents.

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Lesson to future generations. Run on ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ whenever you can. Keep it simple. The rest is just noise.

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOP
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    3 days ago

    With TERFs voting Tory or Reform because if trans rights and Reform support being so high amongst young men I’m already done with asking people if they’ve voted as they aren’t shy about disappointing you. Back in the day no-one but the most ardent Nazi would tell you they voted BNP.

    • UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      Catching up on James O’Brien episodes today and he mentions a poll that asked both sides what are the issues important to them.

      In both Labour and the Tory results, transgender issues aren’t shown. It’s the media trying to whip up people in a frenzy.

    • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      The positive news. Voting reform is very unlikely to win more than 7 seats. But will split the right wing vote from Tories. Letting Lib Dems or even Labour win seats from the Tories.

      They are where fptp works for the left for a change.

      While Id def prefer a situation where a seat cannot be taken, with >60% wanting any other MP. Here it helps. While maybe convincing more voters, FPTP is shit.

      • LifeBandit666@feddit.uk
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        3 days ago

        I’ve always worked factory jobs and have grown used to people showing their true colours at voting time. This year I’m in a different workplace that seems a bit more left leaning, but a few at the table at break time said they couldn’t vote for Labour because they would take us back into the EU (I corrected them and told them that’s a Tory bullshit and Starmer has outright rejected the idea).

        They said that’s fine but they still can’t vote Labour and they were thinking about voting Reform.

        My first instinct was to go on a rant about that mealy-mouthed frog-faced cunt with a french name that wants to stop foreigners crossing our border. Ask the cunt how Brexit went, twat!

        Instead I said “Hey great, go for it, if you ain’t voting Tory I don’t give a flying fuck who you’re voting for, it’s not a Tory vote and that’s all that matters to me.”

        I would get all thrombo at the last workplace with it’s Boris-lovers, I’ve grown.

          • futatorius@lemm.ee
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            3 hours ago

            The fun part is that, whatever happens in Romania, once that’s over, he’s going to be sent back here to face more pending charges.

            And it didn’t escape my notice that Farage was name-checking Tate during the campaign. It’ll be nice to see both of them vanish from public view.

            • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukOP
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              2 hours ago

              And it didn’t escape my notice that Farage was name-checking Tate during the campaign.

              It was also not an accident - those on the right are well aware that there’s an increasing split in the vote with men more likely to vote for the right and it gets more pronounced in younger cohorts. As Tate appeals most to younger men it is a clear attempt to target them.

          • LifeBandit666@feddit.uk
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            3 days ago

            Eugh, well done! We were all stupid little fuckers in the past at some point. God I was so full of my own self importance in my 20s it makes me cringe just thinking about it

    • steeznson@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Reform are peddling gutter politics but the BNP was explicitly a fascist party. You could argue that it’s a matter of semantics given that all the BNP vote has just switched over to Reform but “populist Tories” is a modest improvement over a party whose 1992 manifesto stated:

      Fascism was Italian. Nazism was German. We are British. We will do things our own way; we will not copy foreigners.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        We are British. We will do things our own way; we will not copy foreigners.

        Mosley. Black shirts, not brown. Our way.

  • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    I took my eldest in with me to show how it all works, what the people to, what voting is, why it’s important, why it’s secret etc.

    He looked entirely disinterested. Fair enough, but I was hoping it would take another thirty years before he got to that stage!

    • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      FWIW, here in the U.S., we’ve been taking our kids in to vote with us since they were toddlers. This was deliberate so they would be comfortable with how the process works.

      Our oldest, when he turned 18, registered to vote. For his first primary election we had a remote zoom call and walked him through where to get as much objective info about what was on the ballot and make decisions. We’ve never pressed them towards a particular ideology. He started off looking disinterested too, but now that he’s an adult, he’s actually looking forward to his first major election.

      These things take time. As parents, I feel it’s our responsibility to teach them the nuts and bolts of civic literacy.

  • UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    Hello everyone, please vote. Here’s my tiny little bit of useful information. Even though voting closes at 10pm, if your in a queue leading up to to that time, you will still be allowed to vote.

    Fingers crossed.

  • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days ago

    As a non-european I have some questions!

    Firstly, is voting in the UK compulsory?

    Secondly, how likely is it that the polls are wrong and the Tories will form government?

    And thirdly, how have the Tories suddenly fallen from grace? They’ve presided over a real shit show for the last decade but kept getting elected. What changed?

    • Twig@sopuli.xyz
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      3 days ago

      1 - Nope.

      2 - That remains to be seen, but the polls have never been too far wrong in the past.

      3 - 14 years of mismanagement, no Brexit to use a as single policy election and the rise of Reform.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        2: As Starmer and many others predicted, the end result was much tighter than the polls predicted. Lots of shy Tories out there, and a smaller number of people switching from Labour to Green as a protest (as we’d seen in our local council elections).

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      The polls can possibly be wrong if something is really close, but this basically never happens. Unfortunately, voting isn’t compulsory

  • TIN@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    Febrile atmosphere here, febrile.

    Hoping that we can be rid of the tories today. More distant hope is for a change to the voting system…

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      The problem here is that any government that wins an election is disinclined to change the system that resulted in their victory.

      Reform definitely wouldn’t do it.

      Honestly think that the only way that we will get electoral reform is if Lib Dems become the official opposition and they really push Labour on it. The daft thing being that if they actually introduced electoral reform Labour would practically win every time, albeit with a smaller majority, not that it would make any difference to them.

      • Chris@feddit.uk
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        3 days ago

        The latest YouGov poll actually has the Lib Dems as official opposition in one of their predictions. It’s unlikely though as things need to go particularly well for them and bad for the Tories in most of the borderline seats. I’d love to see it happen!

        • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk
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          Honestly the UK political ideals would need to change.

          I personally think fptp has damaged the UKs idea of political compromise. Looking at attitudes to brexit when it was won by people who had doffering ideas of what it ment.

          And the EUs attitude to our red lines eve. Our own parliment could not agree on.

          Our politicians all looked like stupid children.

      • Twig@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        I guess that or some coalition government. But that didn’t really go well last time.

    • mannycalavera@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      Labour aren’t going to change the voting system. Unfortunately we have to wait for another hung parliament and then some more before we get representation.

    • WestBromwich@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      I agree about a change to the voting system. I think proportional representation would be better.

  • IrregularChore@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    My driving licence had my old address on it but was still accepted as photo ID, In case people were worried about that.

    • ladel@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      I wondered about that, but then I think expired ID is valid, and your passport doesn’t have your address, so I figured it would be fine

    • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Basically, as long as it’s an accepted form of ID and it still looks like you on the photo, it will be accepted.