YOU POLITICAL

In the UK, there has to be a General Election every 4-5 years. The Prime Minister can choose when exactly this is, but there are set dates that it can be called between. A Prime Minister may also call a ‘snap election’ which can be called at any time. But don’t worry about missing out on voting – any snap election will be well covered by the news! We also have local elections, where you can vote for representatives who sit on different councils. The current Labour government are changing how this works right now, so we’ll keep you updated with the latest developments.

In the UK there are 650 constituencies, and for a party to ‘win’ an election, they must win 325+1 of these to gain a ‘majority’. Once a party does this, their leader becomes the Prime Minister.

It can get pretty complicated. Generally speaking, the party with the most seats will make an agreement with another party to bump up their seat total. This can take lots of different shapes and can be called lots of different things. Not every agreement is known as a coalition! These agreements can be difficult to form as most parties disagree on policy. It can lead to lots of broken promises and angry voters feeling betrayed. Due to the way the UK is organised, 'minority' governments are rare.

It can depend on the election, but not long at all. Once you’ve arrived at the polling station, you might have to wait a little to get checked in, but once you’ve done that it’s as simple as marking your vote and going home again!

You usually vote in a polling station, on the day of the election. You’ll need to check where your closest one is before turning up.

If you know that you won’t be showing up at the polling station on the day of the election, you can apply for a postal vote. If something unforeseen occurs on the day of the election meaning that you cannot go to the polling station, you may be eligible to apply for an emergency proxy vote, which means that you can send someone to vote on your behalf. It’s important to note that emergency proxy voting won’t cover everything – so it’s always best to plan ahead and give yourself the best chance of being able to get to the station on the day.

In the UK, we don’t vote for the Prime Minister – instead we vote for a representative in our constituency. It's the leader of the largest party who becomes the Prime Minister!

In General Elections, it's super simple. You simply place a cross next to the person you want to vote for. Don't worry if you accidentally tick the box - your vote will still be counted. In 'devolved' or regional elections, you may be asked to rank candidates in order of preference. It's really important you check if a 'preferential' system is in play before you head to a devolved election.

YES! You do need ID to go and vote now! It’s a relatively new thing, and it could change soon, but it’s best to be prepared. The easiest forms of ID for young people to provide at polling booths are a passport or driving licence, but don’t worry if you have nether! If you go onto the Government website, you can apply for a special type of ID which will allow you to vote. It takes a bit of time – so don’t leave it until the last minute, but it’s completely free of charge!

At General Elections, the answer is still 18 – although this might be changing soon! In some elections in Scotland and Wales you can vote at 16 – but make sure to check before you rock up to the polling station.

YES! You have to pre-register to vote before the day of the election. You need to register your home address – although if you’re a student or have multiple houses you may have to choose where to vote.

General Elections have what’s called ‘exit polls’, which are usually pretty accurate. This means that you should know who’s won or lost on the stroke of 10, as soon as voting closes. However, it’s important to note that exit polls cannot be taken as gospel – they can contain mistakes. Local elections can be more difficult to call – so the result may take a little longer. In some cases, counting may take a few days.

This can depend on the election and the turnout, but most constituencies and wards will attempt to count their votes in one night. The fastest constituencies usually get their votes counted before midnight. The slowest counts (which can often include recounts) can take days.

Yes - but don't take them inside with you (unless it's a guide dog of course). Make sure you take a photo, as a lot of news outlets will run stories of dog's at polling booths and your pet could gain a pretty hefty following!

No. Please don't take a photo in a polling booth - selfie or otherwise. Feel free to take a photo of yourself going to or from a station, but if you want to encourage others to vote (especially younger voters), it's better to take them along with you!

No – it’s your right to choose who to cast your vote for and whether to cast it at all. It’s not mandatory, and there’s no punishment for not showing up. At the last election, over 40% of people did not turn out to vote. However, You Political exists to encourage you to get stuck in – and a huge part of this is going to the polls. If you’re not a fan of any of the candidates on offer, you can always ‘destroy’ your ballot paper or cast a protest vote for a third party.

The UK is known as a representative democracy – this means that we elect people to vote on complicated issues on our behaves. It means that we don’t have to spend all our time in polling booths. Being a democracy means that we have free and fair elections – we aren’t told who to vote for and our votes aren’t changed. If you’re concerned about the democratic process, you can always head to watch the count

In General Elections, the UK uses a system called First Past the Post, which means that you only need one more vote than your opponent to win the seat. However, in devolved and Mayoral elections other systems may be in operation - so it's best to check before you head to cast your vote!

The House of Lord's (also known as the 'Upper Chamber') is where a group of unelected officials sit. Although they don't have the power to prevent the House of Common's from passing legislation, they can scrutinise it (check it over). The Lord's is occupied by experts, religious leaders, and a small number of hereditary peers.

The House of Common's (also known as the 'Lower Chamber') is where MPs are elected to sit after an election. It's the place where most 'legislating' occurs, which means it's where bills are proposed and debated. If you've ever caught Prime Minister's Questions, then you've seen the inside of the House of Common's. You can take a trip to visit the Common's on a tour, or you can drop in to watch a debate by waiting in a short queue. It's well worth a visit if you're in the area!

The vast majority of MPs have Parliamentary E-Mails where you can drop them a message. It's important to be polite and respectful, and understand that MPs are really busy, so it might take a while for them to reply. A few MPs don't use E-Mail, and instead only hold 'surgeries' (meetings) take letters via the post.

Your MP does tons of different things, from contacting you, to asking questions in Parliament. Being an MP is a difficult job, which often requires long hours and can come with quite a lot of abuse - it's not always the glamour of PMQs. Time in Parliament is often spent talking about local developments, and time out is usually spent speaking to constituents and managing their 'casework'. If an MP is a Minister or Shadow Minister, they might hold additional roles such as creating national transport links or managing devolution. This means that constituency work might be handled by someone on behalf of them.

During an election period, most parties will produce a booklet called a ‘manifesto’, which is essentially a list of promises. Some parties might choose to call them a different name – but they’re all the same really! Manifesto’s can be long and boring to read, so most news organisations will produce guides to navigating them and explain their key promises, so you don’t need to worry about reading them. Of course, there’s no guarantee that a party will stick to their manifesto – so simply checking their social media output, the news or their website might be a better way of keeping up to date. You can also be pretty certain of the fact that if the governing party has a policy, the opposition will oppose it!

Joining a party is really simple, most of the work is done by Google! Just go onto your party of choice’s website, find the membership section, and sign up. Some parties will have special rates for young people and students and may ask you to choose between monthly and yearly rates, so make sure to check this before signing up.

Of course. The most common way to stand for an election is to join up with a party. If you do that then you’ll probably have to go through a selection process which could pit you against other candidates. If you get the job, you’ll have access to party resources such as extra funding and volunteers. However, it’s perfectly possible to stand for election without being a member of a party. There are plenty of candidates nation-wide who stand without the support of a party behind them and, in fact, it’s quite common at local elections for independent candidates to win.

At it's core, 'devolution' is basically the spreading out of power from it's central base in Westminster to different places. The most notable piece of devolution that's happened is the establishment of bodies of representatives in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But, devolution is happening within England too. New Mayoral and combined authorities are currently being formed to make sure that the process of devolution is even across the UK.