General election: Brisk start as voters head to the polls

Polling stations reported brisk early business on Thursday as people across the UK voted in a general election that pollsters say is too close to call.

David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nigel Farage, Natalie Bennett and Nicola Sturgeon were among the party leaders who cast their ballots within the first few hours, as activists were mobilised to persuade the approximately 50m registered voters to participate.

People have until 10pm to vote and the first results are expected about an hour later. The majority of the 650 constituencies are due to declare in the early hours of Friday.

In its final poll - sampling 3,917 people from May 5-7, Populus gave Labour 34 per cent, the Conservatives 32 per cent, the UK Independence party 13 per cent, the Liberal Democrats 9 per cent and the Greens on 5 per cent.

Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative party treasurer-turned-pollster, said his final national poll of 3,028 adults, found the Tories and Labour tied on 33 per cent; Ukip on 11 per cent; the Lib Dems on 10 per cent, the Greens on 6 per cent and others totalling 8 per cent.

It also found that 35 per cent of voters had only made up their minds in the last month, with 15 per cent remaining undecided until this week. But some pollsters believe there could be last-minute shifts as people vote tactically in the scores of marginal seats.

All parties were active on social media on Thursday, using Facebook and Twitter in their efforts to convince those who might be wavering.

Due to the nature of Britain's first-past-the-post system, the Conservatives are expected to emerge with the most seats, about 290 while Labour might be 25 seats behind.

However, Labour is expected to emerge with more potential allies in a hung parliament.

For a majority, a party would need 323 seats in the House of Commons - the Speaker and his deputy do not have a vote, and the MPs representing the Irish Sinn Fein party do not take theirs.

Security at Mr Cameron's polling station - Spelsbury Memorial Hall, in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire - was particularly tight as officials wanted to avoid a repeat of 2010, when two men climbed on to the roof and unfurled an anti-Tory banner.

At a polling station in Greenwich, south London, there was a queue of about eight voters just after 7am when voting started, and a few minutes later it was even longer.

Similar enthusiasm was reported in many places, with voters saying they had not seen such a large turnout so early for years.

One voter in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, east London, said he received two voter cards, one including only one of his middle initials and the other two. He decided to use only one.

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