Reader TTS

Britons who braved the ghastly weather to cast their vote today, will spend the night on the edge of a knife as they wait for the first round of ELECTION results. Polling stations will

remain open until 10pm, and once they close, exit polls will begin to make their way out to the public. An Ipsos MORI poll for the BBC and Sky news will be one of the first to be published

soon after 10pm. Exit polls are usually a good indication of how elections will turnout as they are taken from random samples of people leaving their polling stations. This makes exit polls

much more reliable than the various opinion polls taken in the run up to the General Election.   But exit polls have failed in the past, most notoriously during the 2016 EU referendum when

they predicted a Remain outcome, as well Donald Trump’s shock victory in the US. David Cameron’s Conservative majority in the 2015 general election also slipped past the pollsters – likely

because Conservative voters avoided the exit polls. The first results will begin trickling down from each constituency around 11pm and the vote count will continue throughout the night. Just

before midnight strikes, three Sunderland constituencies are expected to be the first to declare their results – they have effectively been the first to declare results in five past

elections.  By 1am the first marginal seat in Nuneaton could announce its result in what will be a closely-fought battle between current MP CONSERVATIVE Marcus Jones and the LABOUR PARTY.

JEREMY CORBYN will also hope to be elected by 2.30am in his North London constituency of Islington North. Then at 4.30am, THERESA MAY’S Maidenhead seat is expected to announce its result.

But it will not be until noon on Friday June 9, that the final vote count will be declared. If there is any indication of how the count will go, in the 2015 EU referendum it was pretty clear

by about 4.40am that Britain was heading for Brexit. The official announcement will be made once a party crosses the minimum 326 seat threshold to hold a majority government. There are 650

seats across the UK up for grabs. But if no party manages to secure an outright victory, the minority victor will be forced to either strike a coalition deal or try to run a minority

government. It took Conservative leader David Cameron six days after the 2010 election to strike a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats. In either case, Theresa May will remain the

incumbent Prime Minister until a government is formed.