Today, the United Kingdom goes to the polls to elect a new government. Polls close at 5 PM ET, but different constituencies (Parliament seats) will report at different times. The first results are expected between 6-7 PM ET, with more seats coming in 7-10 PM, with a deluge of seats coming in starting around 10 PM. Unlike in the U.S. where individual precincts report, the results of the entire constituency come in at once. Note that since no party is expected to take a majority, we're unlikely to know the identity of the next prime minister tonight.
For an overview of each party's standing, take a look at David Beard's preview. Also be sure to check out Beard's election night preview for a look at which seats to watch and when they're expected to report.
Other resources you might find useful:
• Declaration times for each constituency (in other words, the estimated time each council is expected to report its results -- in case you're wondering, local time there is 5 hours ahead of Eastern time and 8 hours ahead of Pacific time)
• The Guardian's list of key marginal constituencies to watch, ordered according to when they're expected to report
• List of all constituency-level polls, via Wikipedia
• Poll aggregators and predictions: Electoral Calculus (which seems the most thorough, including predictions at the individual constituency level); see also Election Forecast and May 2015, which also aggregates the aggregators
• Live coverage from the BBC
• UK election Twitter list curated by David Beard
This post will become our liveblog at 5 PM ET. Until then, here's the place to talk predictions about tonight's results and possible coalition scenarios.
2:02 PM PT (dwb115): Exit Poll has Tories 316, Labour 239, SNP 58, LD 10, PC 4, UKIP 2, Green 2
UK: BBC-ITV-Sky election exit poll predicts Conservatives first place with 316 seats to Labour's 239. No party has parliamentary majority.
— @Politics1com
2:04 PM PT (dwb115): If the exit poll is correct, this is great news for the Tories, David Cameron, and the SNP and terrible news for Labour and the Lib Dems. David Cameron would almost certainly remain PM for the next five years
2:17 PM PT (David Nir): And if the exit polls are right, it means the pre-election polls were way off. Various sites relied on the polling to project the number of seats each party would win. The Tories looked set to take between 271 and 286 seats; Labor, from 262 to 273. Both of those look to be well off the mark.
2:19 PM PT (dwb115): YouGov has different numbers:
YouGov exit poll totally different with Libs on 31, Tories on 284. Someone is going to have egg on their faces
— @ShippersUnbound
2:22 PM PT (dwb115): Full YouGov numbers:
2:23 PM PT: The first constituency, Houghton & Sunderland South, is set to report sometime after 6 PM ET. It's a safe Labour seat, but it will give us our first indication if the party is getting the type of swing they need to win nationwide, or if this exit is right and the Tories are secure.
2:41 PM PT (dwb115): Houghton and Sunderland South should be announced within 10 minutes. In 2010, the result was 50% Labour, 21% Con, 14% LD, 3% UKIP. How the results have changed should give us an extremely early look at future results.
2:48 PM PT (David Nir): A clarification:
YouGov has not done an exit poll. A re-contact survey today simply gave us no reason to change our final numbers from yesterday.
— @YouGov
2:53 PM PT (dwb115): Labour holds Houghton and Sunderland South as expected. UKIP got second place and the LDs collapsed. Lab 55% UKIP 22% CON 18% Green 3% LD 2%
2:55 PM PT: The liveblog continues here.